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Book (""-'q )g 

Copyright^ . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




Copyright, 1903, by J. E. Purrfy, Boston 

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH 



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POEMS 



OF 



THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH 



NEW YORK 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 

PUBLISHERS 






LIBRARY of C0N6RESS, 1 
two OODies Receive* 

AUG 2/ 1908 

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GLASS CL AXc. Nv>. 

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copy a. 



Copyright, 1908', 
By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 



CONTENTS 



THE BELLS, A COLLECTION OF CHIMES (1855) 



PAGE 



Proem 3 

Prelude to the Steeple of St.. Ayne - . . . 4 

The Steeple of St. Ayne 5 

Chatterton 9 

H. W. L. . ■ . . .12 

Crescent City at Night . . . . . 13 

Song of a Heart .14 

The Angel 15 

Fannie 16 

Maud of Allinggale 18 

To Marie 24 

The Knight of Poesy 25 

A Christmas Chime 27 

Eudele 30 

Drip, Drip, Drip 31 

Tousoulia 33 

A Madrigal 37 

I Might have Been 38 

Two Cities 40 

iii 



iv CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Night Wind .41 

Imore 42 

Forever and Forever 44 

The Little Witches at the Crossings ... 45 

Phcebus 46 

The Night Rain 46 

"Thanatopsis" • . .47 

Noon . . . .47 

To . 48 

Elegiac 48 

Berthabell 49 

About a Tiny Girl 50 

The Gentle Hand 51 

The Three Conceits 53 

Epigrammatical 55 

To Sue 55 

Anacreontic . . 56 

With the Stars and the Stripes around Him . 58 

The Lachrymose 60 

The Old House 62 

My Highland Mary 64 

Twilight Idyl 65 

The Golden Island . . . . . . -67 

The Bard 69 

Hope 71 

LlLLYAN 71 

IV. Scene of Blanchette 73 

Night Scene 80 



CONTENTS 



THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE NEVER DID 
RUN SMOOTH (1858) 



Preface 

I. The Caliph Muses 

II. How it Struck the Lovers 

III. The Wedding Fete . 

IV. How the Little Maiden Wept 
V. How Giaffer passed the Night 

VI. Hearts and Crowns . 

VII. The Afrites give Giaffer a Hint 

VIII. In the Pavilion .... 



PAGE 
85 
87 
89 
89 
91 
92 

93 
94 
96 



/ 



THE BALLAD OF BABIE BELL, AND OTHER 
POEMS (1858) 

I 
Babie Bell 103 

/ 

Cloth of Gold 107 

The Faded Violet 107 

My North and South 108 

The Ghost's Lady 

We knew it would Rain 

After the Rain 

A Ballad 

Last Night and To-night 

Tiger-lilies 



109 
110 
no 
in 
in 
112 



The Betrothal 113 



vi CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Madam, as you pass us By . . . . . .113 

The Merry Bells shall Ring 114 

May 115 

Little Maud 115 

Perdita 116 

Nameless Pain 116 

The Moorland 117 

At the Dead-house 118 

Song 119 

Palabras Carinosas 119 

I sat beside you while you Slept . . 120 

Dead 121 

In the Woods 121 

autumnalia 122 

Song 122 

Barbara 123 

It was a Knight of Aragon 124 

When the Sultan goes to Ispahan . . . .125 
L'Envoi .127 

III 

Infelicissimus 128 

A Ballad of Nantucket 130 

The Spendthrift's Feast 131 

A Pastoral Hymn to the Fairies . . . .132 

The Unforgiven I 133 

A Poet's Grave 135 

Invocation to Sleep . 136 



CONTENTS VU 

PAGE 

A Great Man's Death 137 

The Bluebells of New England . . . .138 

A Legend of Elsinore 139 

Passing St. Helena 143 

IV 

The Set of Turquoise 145 

Sonnets. 

I. Ghosts 165 

II. To 165 

III. Miracles 166 

IV. Hassan's Music 166 

V. Fairy Punishment 167 

PAMPINEA AND OTHER POEMS (1861) 

Pampinea 171 

Pythagoras * 174 

The Tragedy 177 

Two Leaves from a Play 181 

Kathie Morris 183 

Hasheesh 188 

Hesperides 188 

The Crescent and the Cross 189 

Song 190 

Piscataqua River . . . . . . . .190 

The Lunch 192 

Haunted 192 

Song 193 



V'lll CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Miriam's Woe 194 

The Robin 195 

In the Old Church-tower i 196 

Song 197 

Lamia 197 

The Man and the Hour 199 

Our Colors at Fort Sumter 199 

POEMS OF 1865 
Judith. 

Prologue 203 

I. Judith in the Tower 205 

II. The Camp of Assur 214 

III. The Flight 224 

Friar Jerome's Beautiful Book 235 

Garnaut Hall 242 

The Lady of Castelnoire 250 

Amontillado 253 

Castles . 255 

Robin Badfellow . . . . " . . . . 256 

The Lily of Loch-Ine 257 

December, 1863 258 

The Sheik's Welcome 259 

Two Songs from the Persian 260 

The Sultana 261 

A Prelude 261 

A Turkish Legend 262 

Ghosts 263 



CONTENTS ix 

PAGE 

Nora McCarty ........ 264 

Murder Done 264 

Glamourie 265 

The Poet 266 

Seadrift 267 

The Queen's Ride 268 

Euterpe 270 

At Bay Ridge, L.I 270 

Pursuit and Possession 271 

The Amulet 271 

Egypt 272 

Miracles 272 

Fredericksburg 273 

Accomplices . . 273 

Index . . 275 



THE BELLS 
A COLLECTION OF CHIMES 

(1855) 



THE BELLS, A COLLECTION OF CHIMES 
PROEM 

/. The Christening 

I've christened these, my poesies, The Bells, 
Because there is, or should be, in all rhymes, 
A music soft and silv'ry as the chimes 
That float at evening through the twilight dells, 
Born in the belfry of some village church, 
Hid by the ivy clamb'ring from its porch. 

Because some verses have a solemn roll, 
Sweetly sad, a melancholy swelling, 
Like the deep bells of a cathedral, telling 
The sad departure of another Soul 
For the Eternal City ! that far shore, 
Where, like a sea, Time breaketh evermore ! 

Because in Bells there something is to me 
Of rhythms and the poets of gone years — 
A sad reverberation, breeding tears, 

Touching the finer chords of memory ! 

Bells be the name ! may their vibrations clear, 

Fall in mild cadences upon thine ear ! 

II. To My Friends 

Ye friends that gild my humbler way ! 
Ye stars that brighten year by year ! 

3 



ALDRICH'S POEMS 

I know your hearts are with him here 
Who seeks to tread a wider sphere; 
I know the words that ye would say. 

And thou, O friend ! I have not seen ! 
Whose hand has never grasped my own, 
Whose ear has never caught a tone 
From lips of mine, to whom I'm known 

In thoughts, and not by form or mien; 

May I not hope some passing tone 
May start thy sleeping memory, 
May bring some clouded joy to thee? 
'Twere sweet to know, though strangers we, 

Thy heart is chiming With my own ! 



PRELUDE 

TO THE STEEPLE OF ST. AYNE 

The snow was on the housetop, 
And on the poplars tall; 
And the firelight's hand was tracing 
Weird pictures on the wall; 

And nearer to the embers 
I drew my little chair, 
And gazing on the winking logs 
I saw wild figures there. 

Sometimes it was a castle 
With turrets all a-gleam; 
A drawbridge, stretching like an arm, 
Across the molten stream; 



THE STEEPLE OF ST. AYNE 

Gonfalons, and warriors 
Encased in armor red; 
And all the legends I had heard, 
Came trooping thro' my head. 

I thought of ruins hoary 
Beside the Danube's wave, 
Of Vogelweid whose treasures fed 
The birds around his grave. 

I thought of shadows sleeping 
Around the Rodenstein; 
And tales that hover bird-like o'er 
The silver river Rhine. 

And melody stole on me 
Like a sweet midnight chime; 
And 'mong the branches of my brain 
I found this nest of rhyme. 

THE STEEPLE OF ST. AYNE 

You'll see it through the hemlock boughs, 

As down the moorland road you pass, 

Standing ghostly, brown and still 

In the shadow of a hill. 

There is not a pane of glass 

In any of the carven sashes; 

But thick around them, like eyelashes, 

Hang the cobwebs old and gray ! 

In and out those glassless sockets, 

Floats the lazy sun all day. 

I have often heard it said 

Hair grows on the coffined dead: 



ALDRICH'S POEMS 

I know not if it be so; 
But upon the belfry's crown, 
Mosses of a dappled brown 
And many curious colors grow! 

In the steeple, where the swallows 
Dart, like lightning, to and fro, 
Swings the ponderous bell, which monks 
In that tower long ago, 
Hung with many pater nosters, 
Chanted hymns and litanies ! 
Praying when, at eve, it swung 
Between its lips its iron tongue, 
What it said might reach far cities 
And their sinful inmates save; 
Telling with its solemn tolling 
Time was ever, ever knolling 
Mortals to the cold, damp grave ! 

As I stand, the twilight with me, 

In the Steeple of St. Ayne, 

Far I wander in the regions 

Of the misty Land of Legends, 

Painting pictures on my brain. 

Olden scenes came back to me; 

The past throws off its dusty shroud. — 

The Abbot and the monkish train 

In the old cathedral crowd, 

Filling aisles and niches dim 

With their pious murmuring; 

And, as silver censers swing, 

Swells and sinks their evening hymn. 

To the gorgeous frescoed dome — 



THE STEEPLE OF ST. AYNE 

Paintings, brought from holy Rome — 
Floats in clouds the soft perfume; 
While the pensive evening gloom, 
With a foot that seems to falter, 
Mounts the carved steps of the altar, 
Standing silently beside 
An image of the Crucified ! 
Now the solemn chant of souls 
Through gallery and cloister rolls ! 
While, as if with sudden pain, 
Dolorous the Curfew tolls 
In the Steeple of St. Ayne. 

Now I see a marriage cortege, 
Mailed knights and cavaliers; 
Reeling plumes and glist'ning lances; 
Maidens with their stolen glances; 
Dames in kirtles of brocade — 
All the pomp of other years. 
Then the bride in white arrayed, 
Milky roses on her brow, 
White and beautiful as snow, 
While her deep and blond eyes glisten 
As the beams from Dian's bow. 
On her bosom, budding forth 
Like lilies from the pregnant earth, 
Gems, as rich as those of Ind, 
From the caverns of the East, 
Rise and fall at every breath 
As she gives her hand beneath 
The benediction of the priest. 
Hushed the epithalamium ! 
All the gaudy train is gone, 
Priest, choragus; and deep Silence 
Sits within the pews alone ! 



ALDRICH'S POEMS 

And, now through the open door 
Streams the sunshine on the floor, 
Throwing sparkles where the dismal, 
Breathless shadows moped before. 
By the marble urn baptismal, 
Standeth two to whom is given 
A revelation late from heaven ! 
A piece of clay ! a little breath ! 
A form to toil and bear its cross 
Like the Christ of Nazareth ! 



Now I see a funeral train, 
Passing sorrowful and slow 
Through the chiselled portico, 
Where are shadows sad and solemn 
Cast by many a fluted column. 
To the altar front they bear 
Their lifeless charge and leave it there. 
At the feet and at the head 
Of the shrived and shrouded dead, 
Candles burn. The sunlight's fingers, 
Dipped in the window's hues, 
Throw an iridescent light 
On the coffin, and it lingers 
Till the gibbous moon at night, 
Looking through that painted window, 
Throws her lovelier tints below. 
Mournfully the funeral train, 
Tearful, sad and slow, * 
Passes thro' the porch again, 
While the bell within the steeple, 
Throbbeth like a heart in woe! 



CHATTERTON 

'Tis gone ! 'tis gone ! I am alone, 

With the calm, starry night alone, 

In the old Steeple of St. Ayne ! 

The chanting, hooded monks are gone; 

The marriage train has sought the regions 

Of the misty Land of Legends; 

And the sunshine through the door 

Sleepeth not upon the floor; 

And the dead one, borne so slow 

Through the friezed portico, 

Has come back again 

To the charnel of my brain ! 

O'er these shadows — shadows all — 

Reality has thrown a pall. 

Yet the steeple loometh still 

In the shadow of the hill; 

Standing, shattered, yet sublime — 

A tombstone to departed Time ! 



CHATTERTON 



This eve my heart is floating upon tears, 

A fallen rose-leaf floating on a stream. 
In the dim shadow of departed years 

I have been lying with a saddened dream — 
A dream of poor, poor Chatterton ! 

That soul which, like the thousand-lanced sun, 
Ate itself into night ! that monarch soul ! 

Which foamed and muttered like the sobbing sea, 
And broke a heart that it could not control. 

Poor Chatterton ! who does not weep for thee ? 



IO ALDRICH'S POEMS 

What bosom melts not at the mournful tale 

Of thy short, fevered life ? Thou diedst in scorn, 

Like the proud moon that doth majestic sail 
The ebon night, and sinks before the dawn. 



ii 



As the soft snow comes down 

And fills each secret nook, 

Robbing the ice-stilled brook 
And the housetops of the town, 

And the chimneys as they look, 
With open mouths, to all 
The flakes, till in a pall 

Of white the earth is hid; 
So did Ambition creep 

Upon the child unbid. 
Each grotto of his heart 

Is filled, each crevice deep, 
E'en as the eye its lid. 

'Twas of his soul a part. 

in 

'Twas twilight ebb, and the boy was sitting 

In a deep recess of the Gothic hall; 
Wildest thoughts across his heart were flitting, 

Wild as the tracery upon the wall. 
Upon a stair of stars the Night came down, 

With footfalls noiseless as the stealthy air, 
And like a mantle wrapped the shouldered town ; 

And still the child sat dreaming, brooding there. 
The moon sleeked "anciente" Bristol with her beams, 

And from St. Mary's swelled the midnight chime; 



CHATTERTON II 

Still sat the boy, his hot brain moulding dreams 
Which cluster, star-like, on the sky of Time ! 



Morn broke on restless London, like a sea, 

In rippling waves of light; the sun sent all 
The sleepy stars to bed. The great city 

Was awakened to wrangle in its thrall 
Of crime and servitude; and in its streets, 
Through which the pulse of greedy Traffic beats, 

The crier's voice mixed with the rattling wheel; 
And all the vast machinery din 
Went on as if from out that place of sin 

In the cold night, a spirit did not steal, 
Winging its way thro' Heaven's starry fires, 

To rest forever on th'eternal shore. 
Morn broke on London, crowning all its spires 

With gold — but Chatterton ! he was no more. 

VI 

In a coffin roughly nailed, 
They placed nis boyish form 
While yet his blood was warm, 

His forehead scarcely paled ; 
And bore him quick along 
Amid the heedless throng. 

Ah ! cruel hands that laid 
That little weary frame 

Within the grave they made, 1 
With nought to tell his name; 

1 "He was cast into the burying-ground of Shoe-lane Workhouse 
— the pauper's burying-ground — the end, so far as his clayey taber- 
nacle was concerned, of all his dreamy greatness." 

—Mrs. S. C. Hall. 



12 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

It should not have been so; 

No pauper mound should own 
That shattered casket, tho' 

The gem itself is gone ! 

H. W. L. 

Like him of old, whose touch divine 
Drew water from the senseless stone, 
Thy words have drawn a silver tone 

Of music from this heart of mine. 

Poet-soul ! O gentle one ! 

Thy thought has made my darkness light; 
The solemn Voices of the Night 
Have filled me with an inner tone. 

Their echoes linger on my ear; 
The footsteps of the Angels come 
Thro' the long entry to my room; 

1 almost fancy that I hear 

A low, sweet breathing at the door, 

And do not dare to move, for I 

Would not dispel the fantasy 
That grows upon me more and more. 

To gain that near, that far-off shore 
We only cross a bridge of Sleep, 
That bridge sinks not into the deep, 

When we have passed, for evermore. 

The unfleshed dead can cross again 
Unto this sphere. O ! I am sure 
They're near us, when high thoughts and pure, 

Like monarchs, pace our chamber'd brain. 



CRESCENT CITY AT NIGHT 13 

O Bard of Shadows ! thine the art 

To lead us through the realm of dreams, 
Robing the Real until it seems 

Of the fair Ideal a part. 

I'll drink thy praise in olden wine, 
And in the cloak of fine conceit 
I'll tell thee how my pulses beat, 

How half my being runs to thine. 



CRESCENT CITY AT NIGHT 

SEEN FROM THE FRENCH CATHEDRAL AT 
PLACE D'ARMES 

How grand to sit in this old steeple high, 
And view the city with its veins of streets ! 
A muffled sound, like troubled winds that die, 
Mounts to the housetops and in space retreats. 
The soot-faced chimneys whisper far beneath 
With heads half hidden in their smoky breath ! 

Now, as Night draws her counterpane of black, 

And tucks it closely round the horizon, 

The lamp-fringed streets are lighted one by one — 

Each seems a serpent with a glossy back ! 

With spectral fingers quiv'ring in the air, 

The churches point to where "our Father" dwells; 

Ave Maria from the tongues of bells 
Floats to the zenith and the angels there, 
Who, crowned with asphodel and twilight dim, 
Are messengers between this world and Him ! 



14 ALDRICH'S POEMS 



SONG OF A HEART 

Ye who love Nature, and in Nature, God, 
Listen to one whose heart is full of song 
And gratitude unto his very lips. 

His music is not art-born; it leaps forth 
Untutored, like the daisies of the spring, 
Or brooks that babble of their own free will. 

In the sweet faces of the buds I see 

That God swings this flower-scented sphere, 

Like a great censer, in the purple void ! 

I have a sense within me that perceives 
His Presence in the blowing wind, and in 
The footsteps of the crystal-footed Rain ! 

To him that holdeth Nature near his heart, 
The brooks are hymning praises, and the sea 
Is ever rolling some grand anthem forth ! 

The grass that comes in April to the mounds 
In grave-yards, and the vines that creep along 
The humble porch of village churches, are 

So many fingers pointing up to God ! 
So many holy monitors that tell 
His majesty in silent eloquence ! 

O, Pilgrim to the Unseen Land ! if thou 
Art thirsty for the Living Waters; if 
Thy lips do hunger for the Bread of Life, 



THE ANGEL 



15 



And yet thou fearest "the cold feel of death," 
The grave — that gate-way to eternity 
And Paradise — love Nature, for 'tis God. 

THE ANGEL 

O ! memory, the painter ! 

Limns upon my brain 
The faces of beloved ones 

I'll never see again ! 

There is one sainted picture — 

O, fancy keep it near ! — 
'Mid golden hair, Madonna eyes, 

Serene, and deep, and clear. 

We knew she was an Angel, 
We knew she could not stay ! 

And long we waited tearfully 
To see her fly away ! 

We knew that she was passing 
Thro' life untouched, serene, 

As far from earth's impurities 
As Christ from Magdalene. 

The Angels wearied for her, 

And so from Paradise 
Death came, and kissed her tenderly, 

His hand upon her eyes ! 

And as a flower at evening 

Folds its leaves to rest, 
She meekly crossed her whitened hands 

Upon her peaceful breast: 



1 6 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Laid so white and beautiful, 

So full of holy trust, 
It seemed a shame to lay so pure 

A flower in the dust. 

We saw no seraph's pinions, 
We saw no mystic things ; 

But going from our hearts we felt 
An Angel's rustling wings ! 

FANNIE 

Fannie has the sweetest foot 
Ever in a gaiter boot ! 
And the hoyden knows it, 
And, of course, she shows it, — 
Not the knowledge, but the foot, — 
Yet with such a modest grace, 
Never seems it out of place. 

Ah, there are not many 
Half so sly, or sad, or mad, 

Or wickeder than Fannie. 

Fannie has the blackest hair 

Of any of the village girls; 
It does not shower on her neck 

In silken or coquettish curls. 
It droops in folds around her brow, 

As clouds, at night, around the moon, 
Looped with lilies here and there, 

In many a dangerous festoon. 
And Fannie wears a gypsy hat, 
Saucily — yes, all of that ! 



FANNIE 17 

Ah, there are not many 

Half so sly, or sad, or mad, 
Or wickeder than Fannie. 

Fannie wears an open dress — 

Ah ! the charming chemisette ! 
Half concealing, half revealing 

Something far more charming yet. 
Fannie drapes her breast with lace, 
As one would drape a costly vase 
To keep away mischievous flies; 
But lace can't keep away one's eyes, 
For every time her bosom heaves, 

Ah, it peepeth through it; 
Yet Fannie looks the while as if 
Never once she knew it. 

Ah, there are not many 

Half so sly, or sad, or mad, 
Or innocent as Fannie. 

Fannie lays her hand in mine; 
Fannie speaks with naivete, 
Fannie kisses me, she does ! 

In her own coquettish way. 
Then softly speaks and deeply sighs, 
With angels nestled in her eyes. 
In the merrie month of May, 
Fannie swears sincerely 
She will be my own, my wife, 
And love me dearly, dearly 
Ever after all her life. 

Ah, there are not many 

Half so sly, or sad, or mad, 
As my true-hearted Fannie. 



l8 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

MAUD OF ALLINGGALE 
Part I 



The wind was toying with her hair, 
As on the turret top she stood; 
Her gaze was on the bending wood, 

And in her eyes a dim despair. 

Moaning (Enone, sad and pale, 

Sweet Psyche when her love had gone 
Were not more tearful or forlorn 
Than Maud of Allinggale. 

II 

And "Ah," she said, "he will not come! 
And I have waited all the day." 
Afar she saw the ocean spray, 

Like lances glimmer in the gloom. 

And then the moon came sideling up 
Deep set within a milky girth: 
And at the zenith turned on earth 
Like an inverted cup. 

hi 

Two moons o'er sleeping earth had bent, 
Then stately through the heavens strode, 
Since Walter from the castle rode 
Armed cap-a-pie for tournament : 
"O Maud of Allinggale!" he said, 
"A little while and I will come," 
And fondly o'er her drooped the plume 
That floated from his head. 



MAUD OF ALLINGGALE 19 



IV 



She heard his footsteps on the floor, 
She saw him thro' the forest leaves, 
The orange sunshine on his greaves; 

And he was gone — for evermore ; 

For in the heart of that green wood, 
Unknown, unseen by mortal eyes, 
The Castle of a Thousand Dyes 
Of fairy Monok stood. 



This queen immortal loved the knight, 
And so she sent an airling brood 
To lead him through the bosky wood 

Until he knew no left nor right; 

And as he paused upon a steep 

That rose from out a fountain place, 
They sprinkled dewdrops on his face, 
And so he fell asleep. 



VI 



And two white-breasted wood-nymphs took 
The dreaming youth in their soft arms, 
And bore him where a row of Palms 

Shadowed a drawbridge on the brook; 

And 'tween two cedars, old and gaunt, 
Their summits tinged with yellow light, 
They passed, and bore the sleeping knight 
Into the fairy haunt. 



20 ALDRICH'S POEMS 



vn 

They took the helmet from his brow, 
Unlaced his breastplate, white as milk, 
And draped him with a robe of silk 

Glittering like frozen snow ! 

And in his coat of mail instead 

They placed a form like Walter's made. 
And laid it in the forest glade 
As though that he were dead. 



Part II 



When Walter woke his dream-filled eyes 
Were dazzled with the rainbow light; 
"St. George!" he cried, "I'm lost to sight 

And sense, be this not Paradise ! " 

He heard the trembles of a lute, 
He saw the fountains leap in air, 
And spread around him everywhere 
The most delicious fruit. 

II 

And chalices ambrosial brimmed, 
Flagons of the costliest wine 
Fresh from the vineyards of the Rhine, 
And honey from the richest skimmed 
Rich cordials full of golden eyes; 
And delicacies of all isles, 
Scattered around him, in huge piles 
Lay like wrecked argosies. 



MAUD OF ALLINGGALE 21 



III 



The trilling of a thousand birds 
Burst on him with canorous swells, 
And the faint tinkling of far bells 

Came rustling through his sense's chords. 

The walls were rough with priceless stones, 
The window niches diamond-laid, 
And the long fluted colonnade 

Was girt with wealth of zones. 



IV 



And there were halls so vast and deep 

The eye could scarcely reach half through; 
E'en music's echo weary grew, 

And tripping through them fell asleep ! 

Upon his raptured senses stole 
The rarest perfume of the spheres 
Rich with the crystal, star-born tears 
Found in the rose's bowl. 



"What mystic things will fancy do!" 
He said, and, as he spoke, white hands 
Undid the glitt'ring silver bands 
That held a gorgeous curtain to, 
And drawing back the silken screen 
His eyes beheld, on throne of gold, 
Like Egypt's courtesan of old, 
Monok, the fairy Queen. 



22 ALDRICH'S POEMS 



VI 



"O ! thou that sittest goddess-like ! " 
He, kneeling, cried before the throne, 
"Tell me if all my brain be gone ! 
And what these wondrous scenes that strike 
My fancy captive? Whence thou art? 
And whence this dulcet melody? 
These nectar-laden gales, and why 
This rustling in my heart?" 

VII 

Then rich she made him with a smile, 
And sweeping from her throne with pride, 
She laid her hand on his and sighed, 

Half laughing at him all the while; 

And to his ear bent down her head, 
With voice that had a cymbal's ring, 
"Sir Knight of Ainsworth, thou art king 
Of this domain!" she said. 

VIII 

She led him to the 'namelled throne, 



And placed a crown upon his brow, 
And kneeling at his footstool low, 

"Sir Knight," she said, "I am thine own! 

Her breath, like a soft summer gale 

Nursed in the heart of some sweet grot, 
Was on his cheek, and he forgot 
His Maud of Allinggale ! 



MAUD OF ALLINGGALE 23 

Part III 



As Lady Maud, heart-sick and pale, 

From Ainsworth's tower watched that night, 
She saw a strange and flickering light 

Moving across the darkened vale; 

And nearer, nearer still it came, 
Until she saw amid the gloom 
The floating of a snowy plume. 

Her lips half breathed a name. 



11 



And down the spiral stair she sped, 
And in the long torch-lighted hall 
She saw upon a bloody pall 

Walter of Ainsworth, lying dead. 

O ! wild and mournful was her wail ! 
Pale Venus when Adonis died 
Had not a sorrow wilder-eyed, 
Than Maud of Allinggale. 



ill 



"Whose hand did this?" and then a flood 
Of tears o'er her eyelids broke; 
And thus the knight of Lydwick spoke: 
"We found him slain in yonder wood, 
His red blood mingling with the brook, 
And his large thoughtful, staring eyes 
Fixed on a cloudlet in the skies 
With melancholy look. 



24 ALDRICH'S POEMS 



IV 

"We know not how Sir Walter fell; 
But if 'twas in concerted fight, 
We know he fell like a true knight. 
Who struck the blow, it were not well 
That he a knight of Ainsworth meet; 
We'd teach him that our Walter's death 
Has made ten swords in each sheath, 
And he should kiss our feet ! " 



Then Lady Maud bent down her head 
Upon the image's cold breast, 
Like one that lieth down to rest; 

They spoke to her, but she was dead ! 

Ah, why prolong the saddened tale ? 
In Ainsworth chapel, side by side, 
Lies Walter's armor and his bride, 
Sweet Maud of Allinggale. 

TO MARIE 

As sea-shells whisper of the sleepless sea, 

Memory whispers of the past and you, 

Charming my bosom with its melody. 

Those summer nights, which all too quickly flew, 

Like singing birds upon their noiseless wings, 

Ghost-like rise up before me, and I turn 

To sip the chalice pleasing mem'ry brings. 

There is one eve I cherish in my breast 

Like holy water in a marble urn : 

The sun was treading to the yawning West — 



THE KNIGHT OF POESY 25 

To that great graveyard of the buried Days ! 

And at our feet a devious river rolled, 

Squirming and gliding in the sunset's blaze, 

Like a great serpent with a skin of gold ! 

We had been reading a young Bard, who'd stemmed 

The sea of criticism, and unfurled 

His daring colors to a charmed world; 

In his rich our poorer hearts were hemmed. 

Your voice was full of tears, and there stood 

Two, trembling, on the threshold of your eyes. 

O ! much, my friend, I envied him who could 

Lure two such angels out of Paradise. 

You bent above me, and your nighty hair, 

Like dusk and sunset mixing, mixed with mine; 

I felt a kiss, or 'twas a passing air 

That had been loitering on lips divine. 

Then you drew back, and with a crimson look 

Gazed at the pebbles in the talking brook. 



THE KNIGHT OF POESY 

Another Minstrel, panting for a name, 

Enters the lists of Rhyme 

To run a tilt with Time, 
And bring, low kneeling at his feet, great Fame. 

With vizard down, he comes as one in mask, 
Like some adventurer of old 
Who, till he won the Spurs of Gold, * 

Laid not aside his hauberk or his casque; 

He comes, his name and prowess all untold. 
Unknown, this Poet-knight, 



26 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Mounted on Pegasus, most famous steed ! 
Seeketh the Tournament of Poesy, 
Full of the hope of glorious deed; 

And dares in deadly fight — 
Invoking first his patron Muse — 
All knights that speak maliciously; 
All that discourteously refuse 
To press their goblet's mouth of wine, 
When he shall give as toast divine, 
His Ladye-love, the loveliest of the Nine — 

Dark- veiled Melpomene ! 

For Beauty — be it in 
A bluebell's or a woman's eyes, 
A rose's or a maiden's lips in bloom, 
A forest, waving like a helmet plume, 
Or the soft tintings of the sunset skies — 
He has a soul that claims the chance 
To blunt a sword or to break a lance. 

Beauty's champion, he is Virtue's too; 
For are not grace and goodness sisters twin? 
Virtue is a beauty that within 
Sheds radiance without, as does a light 
Through the windows of a room at night, 
. Or flowers, breathing from a vase, 
Or jewels from their case. 

He loves all forms of loveliness, 

And Nature sits within him like a heart, 
Ruling with magic tenderness. 

The air-winged birds that dart 
Up the blue staircase of the porphyry clouds; 
The Autumn-fingered foliage that shrouds 



A CHRISTMAS CHIME 27 

A sleeping churchyard, or the evening dim, 
Stalking majestically down 

Upon the noisy and mast-fringed town, 
Or the winged and ever restless ships, 
Or the murmuring of Ocean's lips, 

Are everlasting joys to him; 

For he is one whose bosom doubted never 

"A thing of beauty" is "a joy forever." 

His war-cry shall be heard; , 

It is that mystic word 
Which, on a banner in the twilight brown, 
A youth once carried thro' an Alpine town — 
Excelsior ! 



A CHRISTMAS CHIME 

THE GUESTS, 

And what the strange old man does in the old house 
every Christmas 



" All houses wherein men have lived and died, 
Are haunted houses." — Longfellow. 

The angels bend in heaven's arch to-night, 
And sprinkle snowflakes on the city's streets; 

The wind moans round the chimney-tops in fright 
And sprightly hail taps every one it meets. 

The lamps that stud the white and pearled way, 
Glare like mad demons thro' the blinding storm; 

Shop windows watch the snow sprites as they play, 
Or throw their rays upon each passing form. 



28 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

'Tis Christmas night ; and while from street to street, 
The echo hurries, like a startled mouse, 

And phantom laughs are mingling with, the sleet, 
An Old Man sits within an olden house. 

The house is quaint, odd-fashioned, and antique; 

Grim Time has passed his palm across the roof 
And left it wrinkled ! 'Tis so dark and bleak 

At twilight play the children keep aloof. 

There's not a sound in all its sombre halls, 
And brooding silence sits upon the stair; 

One can most see the "quiet as it crawls" 
Along the entry through the biting air. 

Why sits the Old Man in the big old room, 

Watching the hearth-light o'er the mouldings climb ? 

The man and chamber in its ghostly gloom 
Seem things forgotten in the flight of time. 

Why sits he thus beside the wide-mouthed hearth ? 

Does he call up sweet forms that, like the leaves, 
Have mixed with flowers in the wombed earth? 

Or does he hear the hail upon the eaves ? 

The jingling sleigh-bells in the street below, 

The goblin sleet that droppeth down the flue, 
The huntsman wind that whistles to the snow — 
• Are these the noises that he listens to? 

Or does he catch the echoes of the Past, 

Like fine vibrations of a distant bell? 
Do memories fall on him thick and fast 

As hail without upon the snowy swell? 



A CHRISTMAS CHIME 29 

I wot not either; but the Old Man seems 
A link between this mortal life and death — 

A dreamy pilgrim to the Land of Dreams, 
His life, a feather balanced on a breath. 

He bends his head ; he hears the panels creak ; 

Then by the chimney leaves his cushioned chair; 
And, with a joy his moistened eyelids speak, 

He draws three seats beside his own with care. 

He holds his hands out, as if to grasp 

Some other hands; he sighs and smiles and sighs; 
Now stands as if within some loving clasp — 

His eyes intently gaze in other eyes ! 

And now he points his phantom guests their seats. 

He heaps fresh fuel upon the fireplace; 
And all is still, save one quick heart that beats 

In yonder clock, within its coffin case. 

O, what a queer Old Man ! And does he see 
Ethereal spirits seated in those chairs? 

Do souls come back from God's eternity 
To mingle with us and our daily cares ? 

I do believe it ! and 'tis grand to feel 

That, when the breezes lift our fevered hair, 

Some friend's hand does it, and at ev'ry meal 
The loved are near us, round us like the air ! 

I do believe they're with us all the day, 
And o'er our holier hours vigils keep; 

That they kneel with us when we kneel to pray, 
And bend above us when we fall asleep. 



30 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

But see, he smiles ! O sure some airy one 
Has twined a sunbeam round his parted lips; 

He hears a voice, a voice for him alone — 
We hear it not, nor see the ghost that trips 

Around the arm-chair of the dreamy man. 

A lip intangible his own lip nears; 
It falls so kindly on his thin cheek wan, 

The Old Man weeps, and slumbers in his tears. 

And every year when holy Christmas comes, 

He draws those chairs within the hearthstone 
gleams, 

And fondly all his viewless household sums, 

Then falls asleep 'mid kisses, tears, and dreams. 

EUDELE 

The soft wind moved the curtain's fold, 
And rippled her gold waves of hair, 

While like some voiceless lily's lip, 
Touched by a gentle whiff of air, 
Moved as by inward melody, 
Her lips were trembling with a prayer, 
Which lark-like soared from out this world of sin. 
"To-morrow," and she raised her eyes, 
"I'll walk with Christ in Paradise." 
And thro' the window came the Twilight in. 

The soft wind moved the curtain's fold, 
And cooled- her cheek with kisses faint; 
And as she lay upon the bed, 
The curls that clustered o'er her head 
Were like the halo of a saint. 



DRIP, DRIP, DRIP 31 

A light was breaking on her lips, 
Like that which tinges mountain tips 

At death of August days; 
While with her on the pillow lay 
The golden parasites of day — 

The sunset's amber rays. 
The flowers closed their eyelids up; 
The harebell and the buttercup, 
The tulip and the sun-struck jessamine. 
With whispered sighs and dainty feet, 
The evening zephyrs tripped about; 
Then, as a flower yields its sweet, 
A pure spirit flitted out, 
And thro' the window came the Twilight in. 

We hid her in a green retreat, 
With daisies at her head and feet, 

To guard her with sweet eyes; 
And when we weep Eudele as dead, 
We smile to think of what she said 

Of "Christ" and "Paradise" — 
Of that far sphere where neither sin 
Nor sombre Twilight enter in. 



DRIP, DRIP, DRIP 

A RAINY DAY LYRIC 

All through that dreariest day, 
Out of the window-pane 
We gazed, but our eyes could see 
The rain, — nothing but rain. 
Drip, drip, drip, 
It said to the sullen eaves ; 



32 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Drip, drip, drip, 
And danced upon the leaves. 

The flowers that clomb the porch, 
Violets like the skies, 
Grew as dreamy and dim as 
A tearful maiden's eyes. 
Drip, drip, drip, 
It said to the sullen eaves; 

Drip, drip, drip, 
And trembled on the leaves. 

A thrill, like a thrill of joy, 
Ran through the fields of grain ; 
And they bowed their heads beneath 
The blessing of the rain ! 
Drip, drip, drip, 
It said to the sullen eaves; 

Drip, drip, drip, 
And danced upon the leaves. 

The barn grew solemn and brown, 
The whitewashed fence and wall; 
And the "poplars" at the gate 
Looked odd, and grim, and tall. 
Drip, drip, drip, 
It said to the sullen eaves; 

Drip, drip, drip, 
And trembled on the leaves. 

When seated around the hearth — 
The evening meal was through — 
We could hear the cunning rain 
Come singing down the flue. 



TOUSOULIA 33 

Drip, drip, drip, 
It said to the sullen eaves; 

Drip, drip, drip, 
And danced upon the leaves. 

And when we went to our beds, 
Still we could hear the rain; 
// tried the kitchen door, and 
Spit on the window-pane ! 
Drip, drip, drip, 
It said to the sullen eaves; 

Drip, drip, drip, 
And trembled on the leaves. 

Still does it haunt our dreams, that 
Weariest, dreary rain, 
That came from the mouths of clouds, 
To bless the golden grain ! 
Drip, drip, drip, 
It says to the sullen eaves; 

Drip, drip, drip, 
And trembles on the leaves. 



TOUSOULIA 

A LEGEND OF THE MOHEGAN 

The Juniata rippled at her feet, 

And like a fallen giant lay the sun 

Aslant the silent trees. Tousoulia 

Was sad. The maiden had been waiting through 

Three crescent moons; had marked them orb and go, 

Like dreamy Houris, down the stairs of night 

To bathe in mists behind the purple hills; 



34 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

And yet her Indian warrior came 
Not back 

Thus to the stream that wandered by, 
Thus to the meadows of the coming night 
Tousoulia made her moan: 

"The autumn has been breathing on the leaves, 
And burnt them into redness with her lips; 
And I am sadder than the Whip-po-will. 

"The summer birds have floated to the south; 
My lonely heart is vacant as their nests — 
It shall be empty till my Chief comes home ! 

" There are no footfalls that can make me glad, 
There are no warblings of the lover's lute, 
At eventide, outside the wigwam door. 

"No tender hands caress me as they used; 
Only the lips of moonbeams kiss my breast ; 
And I am sadder than the Whip-po-will. 

"When wilt thou come? and is the trail so long, 
Three moons must stalk between thee and thy bride ? 
She waits for thee as eagerly, Lenape, 

"As Earth for Spring to kiss it into buds! 
The Bending Lily yearns for him who will 
Make her as happy as a humming-bird ! " 

And softly with her foot she stirred 
A clump of water-lilies, and then grew as mute 
As moulting robins. 



TOUSOULIA 35 

Like a lark that skims 
The outer surface of cerulian 
Clouds, shot a canoe from out the shadow 
Of the trailing trees; and, like a bloodhound 
On its mistress' knee, it placed its long head 
On the beach. Another and another, 
And a third; while from them leaped a score of 
Painted braves. 

So softly came they, the Mohegan girl 
Perceived them not till some dry branches cracked 
Beneath their feet; then, springing up, she threw 
Her arms around the neck of him who stalked 
Majestically as a king — 'twas not 
Lenape. All rich with blushes she drew back 
And, at a distance, followed them into 
The Indian village. 

The Council fire 
Leaped high that night; a scalping party that 
Had been three moons away, came opulent 
In deeds and trophies back. And there were 
Praises and welcomings for the returned, 
Wailings and wild sorrowings for the dead. 

The hungry fire was fed with brushwood; high 
Into the night its flaming arms were stretched 
Like one" in prayer. Without the reaches of 
Its radiancy stood Tousoulia, 
With heart as full of tears as a cloud in 
April time. 

Each warrior told his 
Own exploits with a wild eloquence; then 
As the calm of stagnant winds before the 



36 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Lightning, with its fiery finger, pricks 

The swollen cloud, and deluges the earth 

With most delicious tears, a silence fell 

Upon the plumed and dusky throng. Then, like 

The moanings of a distant ocean, broke 

Upon a hundred swarthy lips the name 

Of all names that Tousoulia loved. 

War Eagle rose; the hair had fallen from 
His aged head as leaves from the grand oak 
In autumn winds. With a big heart he spoke: 

"When the Great Father scalps the forest trees, 
And we have laid our store of bear meat in, 
Our young men must take panther skins and corn 
To Nemhaw's wigwam, for he hath no son ! " 

The speaker paused, and thro' the stillness trilled 
A laugh so fearful that the couchant braves 
Sprang to their feet ; the sleepy watch curs howled, 
And frighted squaws drew nearer to the fire. 
Tousoulia pressing through the wildered 
Throng, stood by the crackling fire scornfully. 

"The great Mohegan is not dead!" she cried. 
"I hear the paddles of his bark canoe 
Afar, afar ! " She paused like one that hears 
A sound i' the distance. "He will come. I'll wait 
For him. He pants beneath the weight of scalps ! 
The great Mohegan is not dead!" 

Alas ! in the too sudden shock of woe, her brain 
Had lost its equipoise, and her mind went 
Wandering, like a bird whose nest has been 
Destroyed. 



A MADRIGAL 37 

Through weary length of autumn 
Days, she sat beside the Juniata 
Trailing her feet, the livelong day, among 
The globes of water-lilies, and 'twas thus 
She made her moan unto the listening wood, 
And to the mouthing wind, and to the stream 
Whose voice was like the music of her own : 

"When wilt thou come? and is the trail so long, 
Three moons must stalk between thee and thy bride, 
Whose heart is empty as a last year's nest?" 

And to this day the spot is pointed out 
Where sat the maniac girl, and saw three 
Summers drop in leafy graves, waiting for 
Him who never, never came to make her 
"Happy as a humming-bird." 

A MADRIGAL 

'Mong Nellie's curls I saw a rose to-night, 
And I was vexed that I was not a rose, 
A captive chained with ebon chains like those, 

Silken and soft, and beautifully bright. 

And then I wished myself the diamond speck 
That glittered on the bertha of her dress, 
To tremble on the brink of loveliness, 

To kiss the tempting whiteness of her neck. 

And when I saw that saucy little foot 

Peeping from 'neath her skirts with Sylph-like 
grace, 

She must have read the wish upon my face, 
The silly wish that I'd been born a boot! 



38 ALDRICH'S POEMS 



I MIGHT HAVE BEEN 

"I might have been" 's a weary lay 

Too often sung, and foolishly. 

With deeper care on heart and brain, 

More sorrowful and full of pain 
You might have been, 
You might have been — 
Thank God for what you are ! 

You might have won a poet's crown, 

And swayed the Janus-faced town, 

Wringing applauses from all men ; 

But purer you might not have been, 
Might not have been; 
Truer you might not have been — 
Thank God for what you are ! 

The gentle hand that clasps your own, 

The lips that sway you with a tone, 

Death might have chilled. Go not alone, 

Like the complaining rain, and moan 
"I might have been, 
I might have been," — 
Thank God for what you are ! 

I have a prayer; 'tis not to crave 

Exemption from a nameless grave, 

Nor fame to stamp me with its seal; 

'Tis that I may, when o'er me steal 

The thoughts of what I might have been, 
The thoughts of what I might have been, 
Thank God for what I am. 



*fi *t* *i* H* A/% 






As falls a ray of transient golden light 
Through half-shut blinds upon the darkened floor, 
And leaving, turns the twilight into night, 

Making the shadows deeper than before: 



ii 



So through the darkened windows of my heart 
Stole the warm, transient sunshine of thy love, 
Then left me darkness. O ! thy cruel art 

Hath made me colder than a marble Jove. 



in 



Think how cold ! when I can meet thy glances 
Nor feel the blood pulp warmer in my veins; 
Time, Iconoclast ! hath broke my fancies ! 

Memory, still a captive, is in chains. 



IV 



... I know the ever restless thought 
That reigns within thee; that thy dark eyes wear 
A calm that happiness has never brought — 

A Resignation, sister to Despair. 



Not do I view thee as the passing throng; 
The surface pleases them: they do not probe; 
I see thy woes in wit, and laugh, and song, 

Like rotting monarchs in their ermine robe. 



40 ALDRICH'S POEMS 



VI 



We are not married, and yet not unwed; 
Unwed in joy, in sorrow we are one; 
Though far apart, together we will tread 

A path thro' life the twilight falls upon. 

VII 

The twilight's on our faces, and our lives 
Are but the echoes of one saddened tune. 
Joy sank; grief rose, all passions that survives — 

The night outlives its little silver moon. 

TWO CITIES 

" There are two worlds about us, 
Two worlds in which we dwell — 
Within us and about us." — R. H. Stoddard 

'Twas dusk, and from my window 

Upon the street below 
I saw the people passing, 

Like shadows, to and fro; 

And faintly, very faintly 

I heard the ceasing din; 
And like the dusk without me 

There was a dusk within. 

And thoughts with eager footsteps, 
Dim thoughts of joy and pain, 

Filled the streets and by-ways of 
The city in my brain. 

A passing light and holy 
Like that which softly falls 



THE NIGHT WIND 41 

Through open gates in cloudlets 
Upon cathedral walls, 

Fell upon the towers of 

The city in my mind; 
My inward sight grew clearer 

My outward vision blind. 

Forgotten was the window; 

There seemed no street below, 
I did not see them passing, 

The shadows, to and fro. 

I was between Two Cities 

In which my spirit dwells; 
And I could hear the chimings 

Of two sad sets of bells 

Without the holy Trinity's; 

And deep within my soul, 
My heart was throbbing like a bell 

When it has ceased to toll ! 



THE NIGHT WIND 

I feel like weeping when the dismal Wind 
Talks to the chimney of an Autumn night — 
So strangely talks with meaning undefined — 
Or scolds the forest till it shrinks in fright, 
And with its lips of leaves, all terror white, 
Begs of the breeze to treat it less unkind. 

To-night, before the supper lamps were lit, 
The poor Wind whistled such a doleful tune 



42 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

My eyelids swelled like rain-fed clouds in June; 

I drew my arm-chair near the hearth, to sit 

And form the embers into figures quaint; 

I fancied Vikings, bridges, castles drear; 

But ah ! that Wind, now growing loud, now faint, 

Hung like a guilty conscience on my ear. 

IMORE 

A LEGEND OF THE MINSTREL TIMES 

One day while sitting in the dim old woods, 

Charmed with the braided notes of brooks and birds, 

Sleep stole upon him like a pleasant thought. 

His head was pillowed upon violets, 

And lilies stood on tip-toe to his lips. 

As thus he slept, an angel dropped among 

The flowerets, the Lady Volant and 

The Earl went by and saw him slumbering; 

And ever after in the maiden's dream, 

Was Imore sleeping by the rivulet. 

Ah, he beheld her on that summer day 
Through the sly openings of his roguish eyes; 
And she was queenly as a budded moon ! 
Peerless as she whose nectared kisses cost 
Mark Antony a kingdom ! And he turned 
From gay to sad, and haunted the old wood; 
His cheeks grew pale as lilies in a rill; 
He sang no longer like a morning lark, 
But hummed around the lindens like a bee. 

Once Lady Volant loved to sit and watch 
From Odenwald's high tower, the red sun 



IMORE 43 

Folding his purple pinions for the eve, 
And the clear stars that cluster thick upon 
The arch of night, like watery diamonds 
On a ring of jet. But now she strayed far 
In the leafy glens, and plucking roses, 
Warm with the parting kiss that sunset gives, 
Came melancholy with the twilight home. 

One eve as she was roving thro' the glade, 
She found the minstrel sleeping as before 
Upon a couch of violets — as once 
Diana found Endymion asleep, 
Loving him ever after — and from out 
His parted lips his breath came like the breath 
Of hyacinths. Then whispered Volant 
Softly to herself, "Methinks I could such 
Honeyed sweetness from those full lips draw, as 
Does a bee from the sweet honeysuckle. 
Now by the blood that circles in these veins 
And prompts me in this sweet delicious freak ! 
I'll taste them, and if he awakes I'll swear 
That 'twas some spirit kissed him in his dream, 
Not I; that I'm the daughter of an earl 
And would not stoop to press a common lip : 
Then I'll sweep by, majestic as the Night." 

Then, like a rainbow, she bent over him, 
With all the hues of autumn on her cheeks. 
Raising the fringed curtains of his eyes, 
He threw both arms around her snowy neck 
And punished her with kisses ! She drew back 
With angered orbs; then blushed, then thro' the wood 
Leaped the silvery echoes of her laugh. 



44 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

And then she called him "cruel, cruel boy," 
And asked him if the bluebells did not close 
Their eyes with envy, when he looked at them; 
And then she laid her hand among his curls. 
The evening melted, and night found them there — 
Cupid and Psyche wooing in a wood ! 

"There is a clime," he said, "a far-off land 

Of orange bowers and magnolia trees, 

With streams of goldfish gurgling 'mong the hills; 

Where winter never throws a pall upon 

The sweet-lipped flowerets, and May and June 

Go, hand in hand, throughout the livelong year ! " 

Softly at night she left the castle gate 

To wander with the minstrel to that land 

Of never dying summer and blue skies. 

They wandered off, and never more were seen 

By any swineherd of those dewy dells, 

Nor by the Dryads, nor the Fauns, nor Fays, 

Nor any of the sylvan train that dwell 

By the cool fountains of that haunted wood. 

FOREVER AND FOREVER 

AN IMITATION 

Sweet Nea held her hand in mine, 

Beside us rolled the river; 
"Wilt thou love me, Nea?" and she said, 

"Forever and forever." 

And when the roses blushed again 
I stood beside that river, 



A NEST OF SONNETS 45 

But Nea, darling ! she was gone 
Forever and forever. 

She went with blossoms in the spring, 

And shall I see her never? 
Ah, yes ! for those who love, love on 

Forever and forever. 

" There is another better world," 
Where pain and death are never; 

There she and I shall live and love 
Forever and forever. 



A NEST OF SONNETS 

/. The Little Witches at the Crossings 

These imps of Want ! these sprites of Poverty ! 

That flock the crossways of the muddy town 

With brooms at ev'ry rain, whence come they, pray? 

Spring they from earth, or do they tumble down, 

Like animalculae, in drops of rain ? 

How phantom-like they move about the street ! 

Are they dwarf Gnomes fresh from some cavern's 

brain, 
Like those in Arab legends ? Can hearts beat 
In such odd creatures ? Are they more than breath ? 
Look at those skinny outstretched hands ! Why, they 
Are spectral as the Witches in Macbeth ! 
Drop them a coin, pedestrian, thus may 
You win their good-will, which were best to own, 
Since heaven can tell what elfs these are alone. 



46 ALDRICH'S POEMS 



II. Phoebus 

Dew-dappled Phoebus, with half-shaded eye, 

Stalks through the portals of the eastern skies; 

The stars that drop above the world on high, 

Beneath his gaze close their cloud-lidded eyes; 

He taps the dreaming city till it wakes 

And hums and murmurs like an o'erturned hive; 

With twit'ring birds the forest is alive, 

And bends to see its shadow in the lakes ! 

In toying wavelets the soft zephyr breaks, 

Bearing the perfume from the gummy pines; 

Flowers, the drinking-cups of the. god-sun, 

Are brimmed with dew. His touch incarnadines 

The dank hilltops, and all it falls upon — 

The reeling grain fields and the streams that run. 



III. The Night Rain 

Piteous Rain ! O how it sobs without ! 

Driven from Heaven like a sinning child, 

Thrust from the Gates by scolding winds and wild, 

It wanders weary, drearily about. 

At me it peereth through the window-panes, 

And almost asks if I would let it in — 

I'm not proclivous, weeping child of sin. 

Then off it speeds and curses and complains; 

Its footfalls sound with quick and nervous beat 

On dismal miles of dimly lighted street. 

It pauses oft, as if its tim'rous ear 

Had caught a sound — 'twas only sighing leaves — 

Then rushes onward with a trembling fear, 

And seeks to hide beneath protruding eaves. 



NOON 47 



IV. "Thanatopsis" 

When one can die with the proud consciousness 

That he will 'bide forever with the world, 

And that when monarchs and their broods are hurled 

Contemptuous down Oblivion's abyss, 

He will span time like heaven's bow : God ! this 

Must set his blood to boiling, and with bliss 

Fill his king-heart up to the very brim ! 

Yet do I know of a sublimer joy 

Possessing which I would not envy him — 

O faith ! the alchemist that turns th' alloy 

Of death to golden calm. 'Tis when the soul, 

Uncaged, goes singing lark-like thro' the spheres 

Confidingly to God, devoid of fears, 

Having on earth paid Paradise its toll ! 



V. Noon 

He's chosen the broad zenith for his seat; 

His brow is sweaty, and his sultry breath 

Fills the sick town, and in the crowded street 

Men and o'erladen horses sink in death; 

In rocky, dewless pastures, close beneath 

The arms of trees the drowsy cattle meet; 

The grain grows dry within its heated sheath; 

Wild lilacs droop upon the sunny steep, 

And winds in knolls have stol'n away to sleep. 

A sense of something heavy spheres the air — 

As if the earth lay in a horrid trance, 

While through the still blue heaven with a stare 

The Noon-king looketh, scorching with his glance, 

Proud as a lion glaring from his lair. 



48 ALDRICH'S POEMS 



VI. To 



On his being Unjustly Criticised 

'Tis ever so, my friend, when one would climb 
The rounds of his ambition up to fame, 
And write, in blotless characters, his name 
Upon the unrolled manuscript of Time. 
There are some men who, as he 'tempts to rise, 
Will envy him the wreath their fate denies, 
And seek to wound him with their shafts of scorn. 
There're many such that mark thee on thy way. 
Teach them this lesson, friend: He that is born 
For greatness will be great ! and enmity 
Cannot unmake a Poet. — Did the thorn 
That cut the brow of Jesus make him less? 



ELEGIAC 

He never wed with thoughts of death 
Worm-eaten hearts and nighty pall, 
Nor mystery, like the writings of 
The firelight's finger on the wall: 

'Twas but to sink in fibred earth; 
To go where buds and blossoms go 
In winter time, to rest; then bloom 
Through summers of eternal flow. 

He wrested nobly with his fate, 
And strove to mask his soul's distress; 
He passed, a spectre, through the gate 
Of death alone and shadowless. 



BERTHABELL 

He was to me most like a stream 
Which, in some darkened vein of earth 
Flows thro' its rocky bowels, but 
To daylight never bubbles forth. 

BERTHABELL 

Where an ivy vine is creeping, 
And tears of dewdrops weeping, 
They tell me thou art sleeping, 
Berthabell ! 

I have often sat alone 
And read on the dark gray stone, 
With green mosses overgrown, 
"Berthabell." 

I know we laid thee there, 
With thy forehead cold and fair! 
But now thou art otherwhere, 
Berthabell ! 

Thy soul stole forth in flowers, 
That fainted 'neath the showers 
On thy grave, in April hours, 
Berthabell ! 

! I never more will come 
And be weeping at this tomb; 
It is all too full of gloom, 

Berthabell ! 

1 would rather seek the glade 
Where the willows throw their shade, 



49 



5o 



ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Where our shattered vows were made, 
Berthabell ! 

I will watch the willow swing, 
I will hear the streamlet sing, 
And kind memory will bring 
Berthabell ! 

ABOUT A TINY GIRL 

Ida, look me in the eyes ! 
Place your tiny lips on mine, 
Rest one arm upon my brow, 
Round my neck the other twine. 

Did you leave your house of blocks 
And the toy that pleases thee? 
Did you see me sad and wan 
That you clomb upon my knee, 
Kissing me so tenderly? 

Did your finer sense perceive 
Something of unhappiness? 
Did your inner vision see 
What the others did not guess, 
That you clomb upon my knee, 
Kissing with such tenderness? 

"Ida loves you very much," 
Don't I know it, dainty one? 
There is not a single curl, 
Tiny curls, like beams of sun ! 
Reeling from that busy head, 
Floating as a golden charm, 



THE GENTLE HAND 51 

That I would not give my hand, 
Or my life to save from harm. 

Ida, look me in the eyes ! 
Place your tiny lips on mine, 
Rest one arm upon my brow, 
Round my neck the other twine. 



THE GENTLE HAND 

Where trips the blue Piscataqua along in maiden 

glee, 
And throws herself upon the breast of her old lover — 

Sea, 
I stood one August sunset with a gentle hand in 

mine, — 
The sunbeams pouring in the deep like streams of 

yellow wine. 

Upon our right the old Fort stood, forbidding as a 

frown, 
And half within its shadow lay the little dingy town ; 
And here and there along the shore the fishing smacks 

were hauled, 
While boats, like lazy turtles, up and down the river 

crawled ! 

The Lighthouse with its eye of fire looked o'er the 

breakers swell, 
Standing all calm and solemn, like some watchful 

sentinel ; 
And o'er the undulating lands our stretching eyes 

would mark 
Old Portsmouth's spires tapering up halfway to meet 

the dark. 



52 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Low at our feet the ocean broke in long and frothy 

rolls, 
And like a gem upon its breast we saw the Isle of 

Shoals ! 
O ! dear to me the Fort, the town, the dimpled ocean's 

moan, 
But dearer was the gentle hand I held within my own ! 

Like a lion that is wounded, but in scorn disdains to 

groan, 
Creeps to some secretest cavern there to bleed and die 

alone, 
The sun in sullen majesty was creeping to his lair, 
His jagged sides a-panting and hisred eyeballs a-glare. 

The lovely moon, like Cypris, rose from out the jewelled 

sea, 
And laid her lily hand upon the Lighthouse on the lee ; 
And touched the rocky bastion and the ramparts of the 

Fort, 
And ran along the sleepy guns that gaped from ev'ry 

port. 

It was a moon that might have lured the Mermaids 
from their caves, 

From out the glaucous grottos of their realms be- 
neath the waves, 

To sit upon the sloping strand and comb from out 
their hair 

The seaweed, and to have a chat with loving Mermen 
there. 

O ! dear to me the Fort and town asleep in light 
divine ; 

But dearer than the landscape was the hand I held in 
mine! 



THE THREE CONCEITS 53 

In brilliant, starry necklaces and bridal sheen ar- 
rayed, 

The Moon stood out in heaven like a pale unwilling 
maid; 

She loved the dewy Morning with his yellow curls of 
light; * ^ 

She's doomed to wed another and to be the bride of 
Night. 

I whispered this to Lillie as she turned her eyes above ; 

" 'Tis sad," she said, " 'tis very sad to wed not where 
we love." 

The hand I pressed too ardently was drawn away from 

mine, 
And eyes were turned toward me all bewitchingly 

divine ; 
I dared to take that hand again and soothe it in my 

own; 
I dared to steal my arm around a half reluctant zone ; 
I told her how the waters kissed the islands in their 

sport, 
And — we neither saw the Lighthouse, the islands, 

nor the Fort ! 



THE THREE CONCEITS 

[prelude after tennyson] 

It happened on a summer day that Hall 

And Walter Everland, a young poet, 

And Arthur Thornburn and my humble self, 

Were in a churchyard near th' Academy, 

Reading odd epitaphs. And tired out, 

We stretched ourselves beneath the wedded boughs, 



54 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Of some tall lindens by the river side, 

Cheating the laggard moments of their prey 

Of weariness in drawing similes 

From clouds, and trees, and rocks. Each one in turn, 

Putting some question to the other three. 

Thus when to me the lot of querist fell : 

"What is this graveyard like?" Then Hall replied, 

" Tw like a beehive with the bees 
Dead in their cells/" And we grew solemn as 

The shadows of the linden trees. 

"What is this graveyard like?" And Arthur said, 

Resting his eyes upon the tombs, 
"These bodies, lacking souls and tenantless, 

Are like so many empty rooms f"' 

"What is this graveyard like?" And Walter said, 

' ' A flower garden where are sown 
By Christ the seeds of many flowerets 

To blossom Resurrection Morn!' 1 '' 

And then we smiled, and placed upon his head 

With loving hands a daisy wreath. 
Who looks in the mild eyes of Faith, can draw 

Sweet fancies from the realm of Death. 

The twilight coming on us, we arose; 

They to their studies went, I to my room 

To think of those three quaint conceits, but most 

Of Walter's; and I dropt asleep with his 

Sweet fancy folded in my heart, and have 

Felt nearer God and Heaven ever since. 



TO SUE 55 



EPIGRAMMATICAL 

Sir Criticus just made a caustic hit, 

Though Criticus has not a whit of wit. 

"These are my 'Bells,'" said I. The critic took 

The volume with a condescending look, 

And ran his fingers o'er it here and there, 

As schoolboys o'er a rainbow-colored map; 

"The Bells," quoth he ; then grappling with a thought, 

"Now, by the gods ! Sir, you should have a 'cap.' 

You may believe, Sir, what your critic tells, 

You long have merited 'a cap and bells' !" 

TO SUE 

WRITTEN ONE RAINY NIGHT 

" The Past is with me, and I scarcely hear 
Outside the weeping of the homeless rain." 

The cottage and the mill, Sue, that crazy talking mill 

Whose hand caresses carelessly the wanton, romping 
rill ! 

The olden bridge above, and the music flow beneath ; 

The eddies, and the stars that came to join the water- 
wreath ; 

The trains from distant towns, Sue, whose shriekings 

startle night ; 
That looming factory hard by with window eyes of 

light; 
The graveyard near the Oaks, Sue, the breezes and 

their sighs; 
The clouds that read the epitaphs with their dilating 

eyes ! 



56 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

The ruined Fort that stands, Sue, and frowns so in 

the night 
Where meets Piscataqua and toys with Ocean's lips of 

white ; 
The moonlight walks we've had and the walks without 

the moon, 
Thro' woods stuck full of rosy eyes by airy-ankled 

June! 

The gleaming of your eyes, Sue, the floating of your 

hair, 
The echoes of your lips that trill and faint upon the 

air, 
They all come back to-night, Sue, -they all come back 

to-night ; 
My eyes behold the dusty Past and Memory holds the 

light. 

The unforgiving winds, Sue, torment the tender rain; 
A storm's without, I heed it not — I'm with you once 
again ! 

ANACREONTIC 



The gleam that lies 

In Fannie's eyes, 
And vainly tries to hide its glow, 

Has scarce to me 

More witchery 
Than that within my chalice now. 
The bubbles rise and wink like eyes, 
Like woman's eyes divinely glow ! 



ANACREONTIC 57 



Come let me press thy ruby lips, 

My Goblet ! lips of wine ! 
Glide through my soul and flood my brain 
With images divine ! 

Who would not kiss 

A lip like this 
Since every kiss a care dispels? 

Each sweeter far 

Than dewdrops are, 
Or honey in the lily-bells. 

in 

Mythology ! By heaven there is 

No heathen god but one ! 
My vine-browed Bacchus, purple-mouthed ! 
Astride his royal tun ! 

I am to-night 

His proselyte, 
And wrong or right I'll crown him king; 

And I will quaff 

A song, a laugh 
From each fresh bowl our Hebes bring. 



IV 



When dark-eyed Grief would fill my eyes 

With tears unto the brim, 

The Lethe of my woe I find 

Beneath this goblet's rim. 

O ! who would wear 
A brow of care 



58 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

When we can share a cup like this? 
What eye should grow 
Downcast with woe 

When wine can pack a heart with bliss ? 



Fate knows when we may meet again, 

My merrie friends and true; 
Then let's dissolve our souls in Hock 

As clouds dissolve in dew. 
Come let us press those ruby lips, 

Our goblet's lips of wine ! 
And flood our souls and throng our brains 
With images divine ! 

Who would not kiss 
A lip like this 
Since every kiss a care dispels ? 
Each sweeter far 
Than dewdrops are 
Or honey in the lily-bells ! 

WITH THE STARS AND THE STRIPES 
AROUND HIM 

" We found him as he had fallen from his horse, his sword 
still firmly grasped in his hand, and the flag he had died de- 
fending, drawn across his breast. He looked as though he had 
gone to sleep, expecting every moment to be roused by a call 
to arms. There was not a clear eye among us when one of 
his friends severed two ringlets from the many that clustered on 
his. forehead, to " send home" to his mother and betrothed. 
He was buried as he was found — ■ the flag, the sword, the 
soldier, in one grave ! " — Letters from the Rio Grande. 

Let him lie i' the dark narrow grave you have made, 
Let him lie, as when dead, you found him; 



THE STARS AND STRIPES AROUND HIM 59 

Let him sleep with his hand on the dinted blade, 
And the stars and the stripes around him ! 

But first cut a lock from his long chestnut hair 
For one that the hero left weeping; 

And another "send home," and with them tell where 
The son and the lover are sleeping. 

When long winter nights, at the home of his birth, 

Are shortened with legend and story, 
Some voice in the household will tell of his worth, 

And speak of his death and his glory; 
And fancy will picture the place where he sleeps, 

Beside him the blue winding river, 
The long sloping flats where the chaparral sweeps, 

And Summer breathes softly forever. 

The mother will weep as she thinks of "her boy," 

The ties that so tenderly bound him; 
But the lad at her side will think 'twere a joy 

To sleep with a banner around him ! 
And she, the dark-eyed and beautiful one, 

Who waited so long for her lover, 
Will fall asleep tearful, and dream until morn 

Of the joys and the love-meetings over. 

When another shall kneel at the feet of the fair 

To win her with sighs and with vowing, 
She'll tell him her heart, as he pleading kneels there, 

Is tombed where a river is flowing. 
The ringlet you cut from the pale marble brow 

Of our comrade, warrior-hearted, 
She'll press to her lips, and remember her vow 

Of faith to the dear one departed. 



60 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Lead the war-horse back to the cool hazel-hurst 

Where the wild Merrimack is roving; 
When his eye grows dim he'll be tenderly nurst 

By those that will never cease loving. 
Lead the war-horse back ! There's a horrible stain 

On the saddle-seat, ah, and gory ! 
'Tis the heart's blood of one for his Country slain — 

Death, death is the price of all glory ! 

Let him sleep by the wave of the Rio Grande 

With no proud sculptured urn above him, 
There are tablets enough in his own dear land, 

The sorrowing, sad hearts that love him. 
Let him lie i' the dark narrow .grave you have made, 

Let him lie as when dead, you found him. 
Let him sleep with his hand on the dinted blade 

And the stars and the stripes around him ! 

THE LACHRYMOSE 

" Beauty still walketh on the earth and air, 
Our present sunsets are as rich in gold 
As ere the Iliad's music was out-rolled." 

This World's as beautiful to-day as when 

It dropped fresh from the fingers of a God ! 

The Philomel makes heavenly the night, 

And Roses bring a blush to earth's great cheeks 

Each summer time. The sun has not grown dim. 

The same wild breezes sweep our Southern vales, 

And wake rough music on th' Atlantic's wave 

That brushed the dewdrop from the crocus leaf 

In Eden's solitude. I cannot see 

That earth is tired out, and wrinkled like 

An aged face; that it has fallen in 



THE LACHRYMOSE 6 1 

The "sere and yellow leaf." I think that it 
Is vastly young, and destined yet to swing 
Some thirty thousand centuries in air ! 

Perdition catch those lachrymosic bards 
That moan forever about weary earth 
And sea ! as if their dismal dactyles could 
Improve it much. There is one poet who 
Has risen up like a great rocket with 
A burst of stars, he's going to "tinker" it ! 
Kind heaven help him ! 'twere a pretty job ! 
For my own part I am content if I 
Can tinker joy, making it waterproof 
To keep out Tears ! As to all theories 
And schism and the like, I do bequeath 
Them unto learned heads. A Poet can 
Do much by writing purely, but far more 
By living as he writes. Who would reform 
The world, let him reform himself, teaching 
By example more than precept. 

Now I, 
Who am no Bard, but a mere poetling, 
A "ballad monger" stringing fancies on 
A thread of rhyme, a literary bee 
Humming round the world and drawing sweetness 
From it, I — a poet be it written 
Of the ephemeral sort, who, dying, 
Would be missed about as much as yonder 
Butterfly — do not think myself better 
Than my neighbor, but I've faith enough to 
Trust the unseen hands that toss the ocean 
Up, those hands that garner whirlwinds i' the air, 
With tinkering this leaky world. 



62 ALDRICH'S POEMS 



THE OLD HOUSE 1 

The Old House stands alone, 

A queer and crumbling pile, 

And though its shattered gables tell — 

Faintly, like the pulses of a bell — 

Of days and years, mayhap of centuries flown, 

I cannot help but smile. 

The Old House stands alone, 

Over the windows and the oaken door, 

There's something in the mouldings that's so quaint; 

No knocker rings upon those panels more; 

Some urchin wrung it off ! 

In these degenerate days an urchin is no saint, 

But dares to laugh and scoff 

At things that bear the holy taint, 

And impress of the Past. 

Its windows boast not one whole pane of glass; 

And tho' it pains me, let it still be said 

That I have broken many a square, alas ! 

My heart has since my reparation made. 

I'm grieving now I ever threw a stone; 

They used to graze the damp discolored walls, 

And wake the sleeping echo in the halls 

And that would go from room to room and moan. 

Besides, the windows always blushed so red, 

When Sunset stooped to catch the winged gulls, 

Or stripped him, shameless, for his ocean bed; 

But now they seem like eyeless skulls 

Of some poor mortals dead ! 

1 The mansion of the late Theodore Atkinson, Court Street, 
Portsmouth, N.H. 



THE OLD HOUSE 63 

That structure seems ideal ! 

There's such an indistinctness in its form, 

I sometimes doubt if really it be real. 

So oft its roof hath felt the drenching storm, 

So oft it has been danced upon by hail, 

That contour seems washed out ! 

And when I view it, 'tis with half a doubt, 

As dimly through a veil. 

That ancient House might tell a startling tale 

Could its cracked wainscots and dark closets speak ; 

A tale to make the laughing lip turn pale 

And send the heart's blood bubbling to the cheek. 

Ere I was born, when my grandsire was young, 

A legend curious, rather wild withal, 

Around that lonely mansion hung; 

And at some future time, 

Should I possess the quantity of rhyme, 

That legend shall be sung. 

Those chambers drear, deserted save by storms, 
Shall hear again the pleading Lover's sigh; 
I'll clutch the Past ! bring back its phantom forms, 
And light with passion many an orbless eye. 
From disused graveyards of this dear old town, 
I'll drag the helpless and long slumbering dead; 
With plumes I'll deck full many a fleshless head, 
With clanking spurs full many a fleshless heel; 
Marshal the dead in some undying fight, 
Robe them in silks as if for banquet night — 
The flippant Fop, the Warrior in his steel ! 

O, let me tell thee one thing, trembling House ! 
That in thy days of former pomp gone by, 



64 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

When light feet danced where crawls secure the mouse, 
And thy bare walls were hung with drapery — 
I tell thee truly — when thy haunted halls 
Were scenes of Bridal, Birth, and Revelry, 
And Funeral wails resounded in thy walls, 
None in those hours of pain and joy gone by 
Could love thee then more fondly now than I. 



MY HIGHLAND MARY 

How sweetly comes the picture now ! — 
The breathless wood, that August noon, 
When 'mong the panting leaves you sang 
" Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon" / 
The very streamlets, gurgling low, 

On happy ways did tarry, 
And whispering zephyrs ceased their sighs 

To hear my Highland Mary ! 

And when the evening touched the trees, 
And we turned homeward, you and I, 
I blush to own "a body" kissed 
"A body," "Coming thro' the Rye"! 
The very streamlets, gurgling low, 

On happy ways did tarry, 
And whispering zephyrs ceased their sighs 

To hear my Highland Mary ! 

Was ever moon more milky white, 
Did ever stream have softer swells, 
Than when at Sagamore I heard 
The music of "Those Evening Bells" I 
Ah, memory calls each cadence back 



TWILIGHT IDYL 65 

And trembles with a dim delight; 
And Fancy listens till it hears 
The warblings of that "Stilly Night"! 
The very streamlets, gurgling low, 

On happy ways did tarry, 
And whispering zephyrs ceased their sighs 

To hear my Highland Mary ! 

TWILIGHT IDYL 



How softly comes the Evening down 
And weds the vapors of the town ! 
Bending o'er its tumult wild 
As above her restless child 
Bends the mother, singing lowly 
Some refrain of melancholy. 

11 

Voices heard at twilight hour 
Have a deep, a touching power; 
Distant sounds seem clearer, nearer, 
And the Dead are nearer, dearer ! 
Forms and faces seem to wear 
Touches of diviner air. 

in 

'Neath the glimpses of the moon, 
Flowers pale, and droop, and swoon, 
Truant streams steal out of glens, 
Over violet-scented fens, 
Through the tall grass of the meadow, 
Throwing back Diana's shadow. 



66 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

IV 

The phantom fingers of the Breeze 
Play upon the slumbrous trees 
Their wondrous, untaught minstrelsy ! 
Making every leaf a key ! 
Every twig a flat or sharp ! 
Every sycamore a harp ! 



The music voice of distant rills 
Humming in the hearts of hills 
Steals upon me like a stream 
Of music thro' a saddened dream, 
Or, as with a murmuring breath 
Thoughtful memory whispereth. 

VI 

And, more charming than the chimes 
Floating through a poet's rhymes, 
From the hill-brows and the dells 
Comes a tinkling tongue that tells 
Of grazing herd, while from the hill 
Pipes the plaintive Whip-po-will ! 

VII 

The Evening comes as softly down 
Upon my heart as on the town; 
Bends above its tumult wild 
As above her restless child 
Bends the mother, singing lowly . 
Some refrain of melancholy. 



THE GOLDEN ISLAND 67 

THE GOLDEN ISLAND 



I know an island sitting in the sea, 

As stately as a God ! 

With great blue waves forever at its feet 

Cringing like worshippers ! 

And when the crowned sun 

Urges his hot steeds thro' the gates of day, 

A golden shower falls on it the while. 

Queen Cleopatra never bore 

A brighter jewel on her bosom's swell 

Than seems this Island sitting in the sea. 

11 

And when the coy young Moon 

Becomes enamoured of her beauty in the wave, 

As did Narcissus in the minstrel's rhyme — 

That sea-kist isle is flushed with silver light, 

And Beauty like a spirit haunteth it. 

O ! it was grand of April nights to hear 

That strange old Ocean talking to himself ! 

Though Autumn blasts have filled them since, 

My ears still hold the silver strains 

Of those wind-ditties that all summer haunt 

That Golden Island sitting in the sea. 

in 

I've but to close my eyes, and I behold 
Those curving wavelets in the cold moonlight, 
Tumbling above each other on the shore, 
Showing the stars their red phosphoric veins J 



68 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

O sprite of Thought ! thy dainty fingers wipe 

The city's dust from out my blinded eyes. 

Like Him that called dead Lazarus from the tomb, 

Thou call'st "Come forth!" and lo ! 

The buried Past lifts up its coffin lid, 

Twelve of the eighteen Summers of my life, 

Like Twelve white Maidens tending on a Queen, 

Stand, flower-decked, round Memory! 

O, thou fine sprite ! what treasures thou hast piled 

In the mind's storehouse ! Memory unlocks 

The tomb of the departed Years, and shows 

Them in their royalty stretched out like Kings ! 

O ! sweet the pictures that she brings to me — 

Dim woods with pulses of a scented wind, 

And twilight shadows hanging on the trees 

Like birdlings half asleep ! 

And forms and faces that in soul-land move; 

But dearer than the first of these, 

That Golden Island sitting in the sea. 

IV 

^Eolus is a king there, 

And his rough-tuned lips 

Voice sea-born melodies for Neptune 's ear ! 

And Echo's hoyden daughters sit 

Upon the rocks, and mimic Ocean, 

Who moans all the while, like an old man 

Whose years have led him to the gate of Death. 

The sea-gulls screech around it, 

And the lark above 

Hangs a sweet drop of music in the air ! 

O ! 'tis a spot fit for a Deity, 

Grand as the isles of the Hesperides, 

That Golden Island sitting in the sea. 



THE BARD 69 



THE BARD 

Quaint-thoughted Rumor whispered of a Name, 

And said that Fame had set another star 

Within the glorious galaxy that brows 

Old England's forehead ! and that she had paused, 

And had been listening to a Titan bard 

Attentively as Summer to the Wren ! 

It spake of one, a child of Penury, 

In whose veins ran red blood as beautiful 

As pulses of the purple wine; his song 

As the full gushes of a ripening soul — 

Rare music drops wrung out by anguish from 

A heart sphered with humanity, a-flush 

With inward Spring, and drunk with love of this 

Dear World. One that made Fate a menial, 

And with a holy purpose in his soul, 

Rose from obscurity above his peers 

Like a full moon that leaves a dismal swamp 

And sits in heaven 'mong the stars and night ! 

Not long I waited for the winds to waft 

This freighted soul o'er the Atlantic wave; 

For soon the Western Hemisphere bursts forth 

In murmurs, like a Memnon touched at morn. 

And well I know that proud Columbia hailed 

Another son of song, and stretched her hands 

To laurel him. His Book came; and I felt 

The Passion that ran through it like a vein, 

Was born of Genius, and that the skill 

Which flung his fevered being into song, 

Would write his name upon the hearts of men 

In characters Time's finger cannot blot. 



70 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

I read and read until my heart was flushed 

With a new pleasure; a diviner Light 

Came on me, and its golden fingers touched 

My being into tears, as the lightning 

Breaks into a cloud and ravishes its wealth of 

Rain. I read and read, and tho' my eyes grew 

Dim with weariness, my soul still thirsted 

For those draughts of thought inspiring as Wine ! 

And all one summer day I bent above 

His book, like a pale lily o'er a stream, 

And saw my own heart-fancies mirrored on 

His page with wilder beauty. . . . 

I read and read until the day and dusk 

In married colors flooded through the blinds, 

And darkness laid his black hand on the page. 

And with the taper burning at my side, 

The Midnight came upon me ere I'd done 

With stars like drops of fire upon her breast ! 

I turned to look at them and wondered why 

Such God-like beauty doomed the sinful world. 

I thought of those great souls that, dying, leave 

Behind the shadow of their godliness; 

Who wrestled all their lives with some great Wrong, 

As Jacob did with the mysterious 

Angel one long still night at Penuel. 

Dear God ! when will Contention come and sleep 

In the soft lap of Peace ? And when shall Right 

Throw off its galling chains, as in the spring 

The brooks leap from their icy manacles 

With an exuberance of joy ? Dear God ! 

When this is so, shall not the Sun go down 

Upon the world with a great flushing light, 

And rise amid a chorus of the stars 

In Paradise? 



LILLYAN 71 



HOPE 

AN EXCERPT FROM AN ANCIENTE RIME 

When from darke chaos was create ye earthe, 
When firste ye sun glowed from its heighte, 

When Nature gave ye pond'rous mountains birthe, 
And peerless Daye succeeded Lovelie Nighte, 

When planates glowed tho' brighte in day, ye colde 

Dotted ye mantle stretched from pole to pole. 

'Twas then that Hope with calm cerulean eye, 
Ne decked in statelie robes of Pride, 

Descended from her throne on highe 

And sought alike ye rich and poor man's side, 

To soothe his woe and blunt keen miserie's barbe, 

And clothe ye Future in a brighter garbe. 

She woke ye slumbering Genius, bade him rise; 

From Sorrow's eye she wiped ye falling tear, 
Smiled sweetlie on Ambition's soaring eyes, 

And hovered even o'er Death's gloomy bier. 
Who ceased to smile she bade them smile agayne 
And in anticipation, banished present payne ! 

LILLYAN 

O, dreamy- eyed maiden ! 
With Peri beauty laden, 
Lillyan ! did thy Southern skies 
Blend those sea-shell dyes 
On thy soft cheeks, Lillyan? 

Lillyan sits through April noons 
In the shadow of the eaves 



72 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Twining flowerets in her hair; 

I would be the crumpled leaves 
On the breast of Lillyan ! 
Dainty Lady Lillyan. 

Her sweet face haunts me where I rove, 
Her sunny glances bless me, 
Her gentler smiles caress me, 

And, O ! my soul's a-flush with love 
Of that sad gypsy, Lillyan. 

Lillyan in a place of flowers 

Slept one summer day; 
Lillyan did not hear my footsteps 
As I passed that way; ' 
And, I wis, 
I planted a long nectared kiss 
Upon the lips of Lillyan, 
The rare-ripe lips of Lillyan ! 

And she oped her frighted eyes 

With a glance of scorn, 
For the proudest little Lady 

That was ever born 
Is this self -same Lillyan, 
This dainty darling Lillyan. 

Like a shattered April rainbow 
Up the skies, I saw the blood go 

Through the cheeks of Lillyan; 

And then kneeling at her feet, 

"Did the kiss I gave thee, Sweet, 
Fall on those red lips with such pain?" 
She said, "Yes ! take it back again." — 

O ! that roguish Lillyan. 



IV. SCENE OF BLANCHETTE 73 



IV. SCENE OF BLANCHETTE 

Scene IV. — A road by the churchyard of Eld; the 
town and the Castles of Craige and Edenwold seen 
in the distance. Blanchette and Ivan sitting 
near the gate. 

BLANCHETTE 

Wilt thou not 
Finish, Ivan, the sad tale that thou wert 
Telling me last eve ? I feel my path 
Has been a bridge of flowers, when I think 
Of thy captivity. 

IVAN 

Where left I off? 

BLANCHETTE 

'Twas where they dragged thee in a noisome cave 
After the battle, faint with heavy chains, 
And streaked with thine own blood. 

IVAN 

O, let the Past 
Sleep in a shroud ! Why should we ever strew 
The thorns of olden sorrows on our way — 
The memory of wilted hopes — when joys 
Of present blossoming, like roses, wait 
For plucking ? 

BLANCHETTE 

It is these sombre phases 
Of our lives that make the bright seem brighter. 
In the soft blending of the light and shade 



74 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

All of the limner's cunning lies. We find 
No joy till we have had a twilight on 
The heart. We cannot see the sun, 'less 
It is partly dimmed with clouds, for it would 
Dazzle us. And if bliss should, like rivers, 
Ever through our beings leap, we should grow 
Surfeited and sick, like pet canaries 
Fed on luscious sweets. Is it not so ? 

IVAN 

O, thou canst see God's hand in sunshine and 
In shade ! To thee, whose spirit wears on earth 
A pure touch of heaven's divinity, 
Those things are plain, that unto- coarser souls 
Seem swathed in darkness. O my better heart ! 
My soul-philosopher ! teach me thy faith, 
Thy subtle faith, that sees in every woe 
An Angel masking or a Joy disguised ! 

BLANCHETTE 

Wilt thou not tell the tale? 'Tis such a one 
As should be told at sunset, when the clouds 
Turn their flushed faces on departing day, 
And then grow sad and sadder by degrees, 
As the great orb hides underneath the earth ! 
Tell me it quickly ! or the dusk will set 
Its signet on the zenith, and the night 
Will cap it with a moon. 

IVAN 

'Twas a great cave 
Where sunbeams never were, and night and day 
Were one; full of dark precipices, 
Yawning and moaning ever, and deep streams 



IV. SCENE OF BLANCHETTE 75 

Writhing and squirming, like black serpents, 'mong 
Stalagmites centuries old. Echo roamed 
Through all the caverns like a demon king, 
With lips brimful of startling cadences. 
In the unearthly light of burning brands, 
Forms, more horrible than that of Comus 
And his crew, dug in the rocky- veined ribs 
And in the bowels of their prison house, 
Bringing forth precious jewels. Men were there 
Who never saw the sun, nor felt the breath 
Of evening on their cheeks. Born in that realm 
Of Cerberus, at tales of planates poised 
In viewless air; earth's ragged cloak of snow; 
The Sister Months, and crystal tides, and ships, 
They'd ope their eyes with wonderment; and birds 
With hearts of melody were myths to them. 
Here did I dwell the long and lonely years; 
The hours went by as slow and sombrely 
As funeral trains - — each bore a dead hope 
With it. Even now, in this rich moment 
Of serenest bliss, the thoughts of that drear 
Cave, fall on my heart like clouds, darkening it. 
I'll not let these cold and clammy mem'ries 
Finger the gilt from off this golden hour ! 
No more ! no more ! I'm all too weary, love, 
Of this dark episode in my heart's Life ! 

BLANCHETTE 

What ! leave it all unfinished like a strain 
Of music broken by the wind? Oh, no ! 
Tell what kind angel took thee by the hand 
And through those palaces, stalactite hung, 
Led thee to rosy daylight and to me. 



76 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

IVAN 

An angel ! Ah, thou sayest rightly, for 

It was. If ever God sent angel to 

This earth, Madene was one. A miner's child, 

Born in the rocky navel of that cave, 

She grew up with strange thoughts, wild joys, and 

tears 
Ran thro' her being like rare music thro' 
A dream. Her soul lay in her hazel eyes 
Like a white lily in a brook. There was 
An atmosphere of purity around 
Her, and of love, a tenderness, a grace 
That loving nature robed her with, not art. 
She was a star in that dark spot, a light 
Gilding the darkness. 

BLANCHETTE 

And you loved her? 

IVAN 

Very much. She nursed me in my sickness 

With the gentlest care, and sang low songs 

And soothed me like a child. 'Tis not 'mid thrones 

And palaces we find the noblest hearts. 

Costlier diamonds are hid in the earth 

Than ever yet have decked a coronal. 

In the lone paths and byways of this world, 

Souls, rich in their own wealth, spring up and die 

Like flowerets unnoticed. She was one 

That shall make heaven beautiful, and earth 

Is lovelier while she lives. Through weary, 

Weary nights and days o' pain she tended me. 

When strength returned, my grateful lips were filled 



IV. SCENE OF BLANCHETTE 77 

With language; but how beggared 'twas to clothe 

The promptings of my soul. I spoke to her 

Of "home" — "dear home" framed like a picture in 

My thought; of one that waited for me, with 

Heart-trembles and most anxious eyes; and she 

Would drink my words in with a thirsty ear. 

When thro' the toil of day, I'd sit me down 

Upon the margent of some inky stream, 

Hearing its echo through the dull deaf caves, 

She'd find me ever, and sit at my feet. 

Once, as I told her of thee, Blanch, starting 

From out a seeming revery, she cried, 

"Tell me no more of this dark- tressed one! 

I love thee, stranger of the outer world ! 

Have loved since first our glances met; my mouth 

Has burned upon thy forehead in thy sleep; 

Mine eyes have fed on thee while wrapped in dreams ! " 

"O, say not so," I whispered, "say not so! 

Thou art much dearer to me than my life; 

'Twere thine could it but serve thee; — but my love — 

I beg thee do not ask it." Her hand fell 

Coldly on my own. " 'Twas a wild, wild dream," 

She said, "but over now. We will no more 

Of it. From this time forward I have one 

Great aim in life — thy liberty ; for she 

Thou lovest must be worthy thee." I could 

Have worshipped her, so full of holiness 

She seemed, so full of paradise. Blanchette, 

I do believe this world is linked to that 

Next better world by souls like hers. 

BLANCHETTE 

And I. 
She must have fallen through the fingers of 



78 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

The angels (never meant for earth), into 
That cave; and they, mayhap, have ever since 
Been searching for her. I am listening. 

IVAN 

'Twas two years after this she came one night 

And drew me from a labyrinth of dreams. 

"Come," she spoke wildly, "I have seen a light, 

Not like the torches that we use, but soft 

And clear and lovely as an eye." We went. 

It was a star she saw glimmering through 

A rupture in the rock, half hidden by 

A fallen tree, and creeping vines, and leaves 

Of many summer times. My heart was full. 

I felt vEolus' lips upon my brow, 

And I could hear, among the trees without, 

The wind's wild symphonies. I turned to bless 

Her — she was gone. Men hurried to and fro 

In the rotunda of the cave with lights. 

My absence was discovered; at a bound 

I gained the opening, and thrust back the leaves, 

And stood out in the night — glorious night ! 

Peopled with planate worlds ! The river crossed, 

I hid me in the woods, and cooled my lips 

With mangoes, sweetest fruit Pomona hangs 

Upon the trees. I slept in shady glens 

By day, and travelled under covert of 

The night. The war had broken out afresh. 

I joined my comrades on a battle eve; 

Once more I led them in victorious 

Charge. The fame, the wealth, the rank 

I won, I lay them at thy feet ! . . . 

(An hour later, sunset; a mist seen on the mountains.) 



IV. SCENE OF BLANCHETTE 79 



BLANCHETTE 

The birds are mute, and all the winding streams, 
With pebbly eyes, flow on subdued. The woods 
Are spotted o'er with carmine, ribbed with gold, 
And the great sun goes rippling down the West ! 

IVAN 

And Twilight, like some dark Egyptian Queen, 
Stalks down the mountain side ! 

BLANCHETTE 

Soon Night will come, 
Cloud-capped and starry-eyed, with Saturn, Mars, 
And Venus in her train I 

IVAN 

How like a dream 
It is ! The town below us slumbering 
In the dusk, and the faint throbbing of its 
Many hearts; the mournful curfew stealing 
On the night, and the sweet bulbul singing 
To the rose; and thou, my love, thou seemest 
The most unreal of all. 

BLANCHETTE 

There is a sad, 
Dim beauty in the scene that touches me. 
Morn walking o'er the coral-grottoed deep, 
Is not so 'witching as the dreamy haze 
That cloaks this landscape; and I would not match 
One scintillation of mild Hesperus 
'Gainst all his amber beams. The village lamps 
Are lighted; darkness screens the chimney-tops, 
The carven gables; nought is visible 



80 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Save twinkling lamps, except when some gude-wife 
The window curtain lifts, and watches for 
Her husband; then a gleam of light runs out, 
Spanning the darkness like a fairy bridge ! 

IVAN 

And Castle Craige looms 'mid the shadows up, 

With window eyes of fire; but Edenwold 

Is bleak and gloomy as a blasted tree. 

Come, love, let's leave these quiet, quiet graves; 

A churchyard is a dismal place at night, 

And we should not be sad. Ere Evening sweeps 

In purple robes again across the sky, 

The sweet-lipped bell that silent, drowsy hangs 

In yon old belfry of the ivied church, 

Shall tune its tongue and chime our marriage morn. 

To-morrow, love! to-morrow! 

NIGHT SCENE 

One cloud was gabled like a country house 

With latticed windows, vine-hid, through which 

looked 
The melting eyes of stars. From out one side 
Was hung the moon like a great lantern in 
The crowded porch of some quaint village inn ! 
. . . The far dim woods 

Were tipped with amethyst; beneath me stretched 
The town of Eld bespangled with its lights; 
Above me, drooped the linings of the clouds ! 
And I could hear, like one in trance, the feet 
Of cascades tripping musically down 
Emerald hills, while ever and anon 
The Nightingale sent trembles thro' the night. 



THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE NEVER 

DID RUN SMOOTH 

(1858) 



TO 

RICHARD HENRY STODDARD, 

Under whose fingers 
This Story would have blossomed into true Arabian Roses, 

My Seven Nights' Rhyming 

Is Affectionately Inscribed. 



PREFACE 

In sooth it was a goodly time, 
For it was in the golden prime 
Of good Haroun A I Raschid. 

— Tennyson. 

The munificence, wit, and affability of the Barme- 
cides made them the delight at once of Princes and 
Slaves; and Giaffer stood so high in the esteem of 
Haroun Al Raschid that the Caliph, in order to 
enjoy his company in the presence of his Royal 
Sister, the Princess Abbassa, decreed a marriage 
between them, but with the capricious restriction 
that they should forbear the privileges of such a 
union. The lovers, thinking to overcome the Caliph's 
whim after marriage, conceded to the condition; 
but they reckoned without their host, as lovers are 
apt to do. The Caliph proved as ice to all their 
entreaties. Nature, at length, broke through this 
despotic prohibition, and — the finale is told in the 
Poem. 

The details which the author has given concerning 
the Nuptials of Giaffer and Abbassa are not to be 
found on the pages of legitimate history; but that 
the reader may not think these facts lacking in authen- 
ticity, the author would refer him to the Tellmenow 
Isitsoornot, & work somewhat rare in this country, 
but occasionally to be met with at Old Book Stalls. 
To this same Arabic Wonder- Book is Mr. Poe greatly 
indebted for his Thousand and Second Tale. 
85 



THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE NEVER 
DID RUN SMOOTH 

I. THE CALIPH MUSES 

At Bagdad, in his gold kiosk, 
Haroun Al Raschid sate one day: 

A-through the carven trellis-work 
The sunshine drifted in, and lay 

In argent diamonds on his face; 

And gleamed across the golden lace 

That ran like lightning round his robes; 

And seemed to split two crystal globes 

Of goldfish, on two jasmine desks; 

And fired the costly arabesques; 

And, falling on the fountain, turned 

Its spray to gems that glowed and burned — 
A spiked knot of chrysolite 

That made a splendor in the place ! 

But most it loved the Caliph's face: 

And it was at the noon of day. 

On cushions cygnet-soft he lay, 
Unconscious of the garish light; 

Untasted stood his fruit and ice; 
Unheeded were the winds that drew 
The lemon trees all ways, and blew 

The gentlest gales from Paradise ! 

Without, among the myrtle flowers, 
Two fawns lay sleeping; a gazelle 

Played with its gilded chain, and rung, 
At every step, a silver bell: 

87 



88 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Two lovers, down the garden-walks, 

Went hand in hand, like May and June; 
And one was as the rising sun, 

And one was as the waning moon ! 
The fawns may sleep; the white gazelle 

May spill the lily's cup of dew; 
But, lovers, love did ne'er run smooth : 

The wily Caliph dreams of you ! 

The sunlight slid from Aaron's brow; 

Then from his beard of silken wire ; 
Then touched his feet, then touched the mats, 

And set their silver fringe on fire: 
And still he heeded not the flow 
Of time, that evening long ago. 
But when the shadow of the mosque, 

Near by, was shattered on the floor, 
The Caliph turned and ate his ice, 

And drank the drink forgot before; 
And smiled like one who, having brought 
To ripeness some imperfect thought, 
Is vain of his own wisdom. Then 
This pearl of kings, this flower of men, 
Caressed his beard, and softly spake 
Like one who murmurs, half awake : — 
To have our Vizier ever near, 
By Allah's goodness it is clear 

The faithful Barmecide must wed 
Our royal sister; but I swear 

For them shall be no bridal bed ! — 
May countless Marids torture thee, 
And fill thy slumber with despair, 
O Caliph ! for thy cruelty ! 



THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE 89 



II. HOW IT STRUCK THE LOVERS 

Then through the Palace, north and south, 
The edict went from mouth to mouth, 

The Princess and the Vizier wed! 
For it v. as law and gospel then 

Whate'er Haroun Al Raschid said. 
And nothing loth the Vizier was. 

He mused : — It is the Caliph's whim; 
When we are wed, the Clement God 

Will gracious wisdom send to him. 
And she : — We wed, yet do not wed; 

The Just would keep me pure and white. . 
I will be ice. And yet, for all, 

She dreamt about her bridal night ! 

So, after bath, the slave-girls brought 

The precious raiment for her wear, 
The misty izar from Mosul, 

The pearls and opals for her hair, 
The slippers for her little feet, 

(Two radiant crescent moons they were,) 
And lavender, and spikenard sweet, 
And attars, nedd, and heavy musk. 

When they had finished dressing her, 
(The Eye of Morn, the Heart's Desire !) 
Like one pale star against the dusk, 
A single diamond on her brow 
Trembled with its imprisoned fire ! 

III. THE WEDDING FETE 

A thousand lanterns, tulip-shaped, 
Of amber made, and colored glass, 



90 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Were hung like fruit among the trees; 

And on the garden-walks and grass 
Their red and purple shadows lay, 
As if the slave-boys, here and there, 
Had spilt a jar of brilliant wine ! 
The stagnant moonlight filled the air; 

The roses spread their crimson tents; 

And all the night was sick with scents 
Of marjoram and eglantine. 
Gay barges, rowed with silver oars, 

Ploughed through the Tigris in the light 
Which from the Palace windows gleamed — 
A fall of gold, quick shafts of flame 

That burnt the edges of the night ! 
And from the open portals came 
Such music that the heavens hung mute: 
A houri playing on a lute ! 

Sweet waterfalls in unseen dells ! 
The trilling of some marvellous bird ! 
And ever and anon were heard 

The dancers' silvery ankle-bells. 



Within a spacious marble hall, 

The Caliph's Chamber of Nine Domes, 
(Six hemispheres of jasper, propt 

By agate columns carved like Gnomes, 
And three, like lilies newly blown, 
Of silver,) on a glittering throne, 
A gorgeous god, a jewelled Fate, 
The great Haroun Al Raschid sate, 
And round about on either hand, 
The royal guests from Samarcand, 
The lords and emirs of the land ! 



9i 



THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE 

Before him, on a cloth of gold 

Sown thick with stars and crescents, stood 
The lovers. On Abbassa's cheek, 

Like roses, blushed the modest blood; 
Her form was like the papyrus reed, 

And graceful as the palm-tree's fan; 
Her eyes were gems; her eyebrows' arch, 

The thin new moon of Ramadan ! 
And half a head above the throng, 

O'erlooking Sultan, King, and Shah, 
The Vizier breathed the golden air 

About him, like a splendid star. 



IV. HOW THE LITTLE MAIDEN WEPT 

The music sang itself to death; - 

The lamps died out in their perfume: 
Abbassa, on a silk divan, 

Sate in the moonlight in her room. 
Her handmaids loosed her scented hair 

With lily fingers; from her brow 
Released the diamond, and unlaced 

The robe that held her bosom's snow; 
Removed the slippers from her feet, 

And led her to an ivory bed. . . . 
Go place this alabaster lamp 

Beside the window there, she said; 
So if he wake at dead of night, 
He'll say, — "It is Abbassa's light I' 1 
Then she laid down upon the bed 

With folded hands, a happy maid! 
And Slumber kissed her on the eyes, 

And led her to the Land of Shade. 



9 2 



ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Her sleep was gentle as a child's, 

An hour or more: and then she sighed; 
Then stretched her arms out in the dark: 

And then awoke. My lord! she cried; 
Then waited, with her cheeks aflame, 
For answer. But no answer came. 
I did but dream! And then she wept. 

Alas! she sighed, / do not weep 
Because, awake, I have not found 

The one I thought of in my sleep; 
And yet, and yet — O, heart of mine, 

I cannot tell thee why / weep! 

V. HOW GIAFFER PASSED THE NIGHT 

He could not sleep, for lo ! he saw 

A pair of eyes that banished rest, 
A star-sweet face, with clouds of hair, 

That fain would lie upon his breast. 
And straight he thought how fair she was — 

How some kind fairy, at her birth, 
Had left a glory on her brow, 

And taught her all the charms on earth ! 
Her hair, he said, is silken night; 

Her eyes in tender mist are drowned; 
Her mouth — a little ruby place, 

Where pearls for Sultans may be found ! 
And with this sort of Eastern talk, 

He made the moments seem less long; 
But, wearying of forced delight, 

He brooded on his cruel wrong, 
And bit the blood into his lips, 

And tore the turban from his head : — 



THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE 93 

By Allah/ that must be the lamp 
In Beauty's chamber! Giaffer said. 

And lo ! it was Abbassa's room, 
Abbassa's room just opposite ! 
And in the window was a light, 

That stretched across the garden's gloom, 

And seemed a bridge of fire, whereon 
The Vizier might have stolen to her: 
And there he stood, and did not stir 

Until the rising of the sun. 



VI. HEARTS AND CROWNS 

Three nights did Giaffer watch this light, 

Till morning blossomed in the sky: 
Three nights Abbassa had her dream, 

And wept ; and, weeping, wondered why ! 
And, on the fourth, as sick Haroun 

Walked through the garden, breathing spice, 
The Vizier broke upon his thought, 

And knelt before the Caliph thrice: — 
Three nights, O Caliph! have I lain 

In yonder chamber all alone — 
And thrice the Caliph passed him by. 

O Heart of Ice ! O Ear of Stone I 
Thou giv'st thy slave a cup of gall 

To drink from — as if thou wert Fate ! 
The Caliph, angered, turned and cried, 

Now may Hath Ridwan shut the gate 
Of Heaven upon me when I die, 

But I will slay thee with this hand 
If thou forgetest what is writ — 

Let slaves obey when kings command! 



94 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

With this he drew his farajah 

Around him, and with haughty frown 
Paced through the garden as before. 

One wears a turban, one a crown, 
So Giaffer mused, then be it said 

The difference Hwixt the slave and king 
Is this — the Crown upon the head! 
Man's heart need not be finely wrought, 

If so he wear a jewelled ring 
Upon his brows! Go to, Haroun! 

Thou art the slave and I the king. 
The pitying heart endures for aye — 

The crown must lie this side the grave: 
Then greater than a heartless king, 

O Allah! is thy crownless slave! 
So saying, Giaffer smoothed his brow, 

And with his thought on some device 
For love's sake, sauntered up and down 

The moonlit garden, breathing spice. 

VII. THE AFRITES GIVE GIAFFER A HINT 

Now when the Palace lights were out, 

And there was neither sound nor sight 
Of life within the lofty halls, 
And Bagdad's minarets and mosques, 
And garden-places and kiosks, 

Were turned to marble by the white 
Round moon — it chanced that Giaffer stood 
Pensive within a little wood 
Of mulberry and citron trees, 

Where a low fountain made for him 
A fairy music, and each breeze 

Came heavily laden with the dim 



THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE 

Sweet opiate from the lotus flowers. 
This spot was haunted by the powers 
Of Rest, and whosoever came 

In the still midnight there to weep 
On the world's usage, or in shame, 

The airy spirits put to sleep ! 

No sooner strayed the Vizier here, 

Than viewless Af rites, of no size, 
Floated around his face, and threw 

The dust of slumber in his eyes ! 
And while he slept upon the grass, 

Within the fountain's speary rain, 
A dream of an unknown delight 

Burst like a blossom in his brain ! 
He thought Abbassa and himself 

Were sitting at a gorgeous feast, 
The like of which was never spread 

For any Caliph in the East, 
Or any King, alive or dead ! 
Such amber pears, and grapes of jet, 
Such sweetly-smelling mignonette, 
Such salvers, piled with richest food, 

Such slender urns of precious wine, 
Such — ah ! when fancy makes a feast, 

It costs no more to have it fine ! 
And so, (he dreamt,) until the peep 

Of dawn they feasted, laughed, and sung; 

Then music, with its honeyed tongue, 
Breathed sweetest secrets to their sleep ! 

Thus ran the dream. When GiafTer woke 
'Twas dawn indeed : the dewy air 



95 



96 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Was rife with fresh mimosa blooms. 

He heard the call to morning prayer: 
Then he arose, and bathed his face, 

And smiled; and by this smile he meant: 
To-night we'll have a feast like that, 

God help us, in the Caliph's tent — 
The silk pavilion that he raised 

For our especial use, I think. 
He'll sleep ! — a little piece of bhang 

Would flavor well his evening drink! 

VIII. IN THE PAVILION 

Mesrour, go bring my golden cup, 

That I may drink my evening drink! 
And even as Al Raschid said, 

The cup was brought, a golden-pink 
Great goblet rough with emeralds. 

He sipped and sipped, and slumber crept 
Upon him. Stop the music, slave! 

The king would sleep. And lo ! he slept. 

Now, near the northern palace-gate, 

A place as still as still could be, 
Haroun, like Kubla Khan, did once 
"A stately pleasure-dome decree" — 
A grand pavilion, under which 

It was his royal wont to sit 
And smoke the ripe Latakian leaves, 

And laugh at Giaffer's pleasant wit; 
And here his Georgians danced for him, 

(He loved a dainty foot and hand;) 
And here he drank his iced sherbet, 

Until his Highness could not stand. 



THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE 

And here the Vizier spread a feast, 
And here the happy lovers sate — 

O Caliph ! you may watch and watch, 
Love laughs at locksmiths soon or late ! 

And there they were, the truant twain, 
Despite the Caliph's cruel ban: 

They looked into each other's eyes, 
And sipped the wines of Astrakhan; 

They smiled at time, and laughed at fate, 

And scorned the Caliph as they ate 

The juicy fig, the spicy lime, 

The nectarines from Oman brought, 
The rosy peaches that had caught 

The taste and tint of summer time; 

And slyly from their finger-tips 

Threw kisses to each other's lips. 

The scented fountain spread in air 

A tangled net of crystal thread; 
And round about the silken tent 

The lanterns glimmered, white and red; 
And fairy ringers passed the fruit, 
And fairy fingers touched the lute, 
And silver laughter cut the air — 

O, merrily the time went by ! . . . 
Now, while the lamps burnt bright within, 

The moon stole down behind the sky ! 



O, cease, sweet music! let us rest: 

Dawn comes, sang Giaffer, hateful dawn! 

Henceforth let day be counted night, 
And midnight called the morn! 



97 



ALDRICH'S POEMS 



II 



O, cease, sweet music/ let us rest. 

A tearful, languid spirit lies 
(Like the dim scent in violets,) 

In Beauty's gentle eyes. 



in 



There is a sadness in sweet sound 
That quickens tears! O, music, lest 

We weep with thy strange sorrow, cease! 
Be still, and let us rest. 

Lo ! while he sang, the broidered screen 

Which hid the door was thrust aside, 
And in Haroun Al Raschid strode 

Before the bridegroom and the bride ! 
Ho ! dog of Viziers, what is this ? 

Ye drug my wine to give me rest! . . . 
So sleep thou! And with this he struck 

The Vizier thrice upon the breast; 
And where he struck, the crimson blood 

Gushed out, and O, it flowed apace. 
Then Giaffer turned as pale 's the moon. 

Then forward fell upon his face, 
And kissed Abbassa's feet, and died ! 
And great Haroun x^l Raschid cried — 

So die they whom the Caliph hates! 

Then three black Mamlouks, three grim fates, 
Took poor Abbassa by the hair, 

And thrust her from the Palace gates ! 



THE BALLAD OF BABIE BELL, AND 

OTHER POEMS 

(1858) 



TO 

V. E. V. 

OF 

NEW ENGLAND. 



BABIE BELL 

THE POEM OF A LITTLE LIFE THAT WAS BUT THREE 
APRILS LONG 



Have you not heard the poets tell 
How came the dainty Babie Bell 
Into this world of ours? 

The gates of Heaven were left ajar: 

With folded hands and dreamy eyes, 

Wandering out of Paradise, 
She saw this planet, like a star, 

Hung in the purple depths of even — 
Its bridges, running to and fro, 
O'er which the white-winged Angels go, 

Bearing the holy Dead to Heaven ! 
She touched a bridge of flowers — those feet, 
So light they did not bend the bells 
Of the celestial asphodels ! 
They fell like dew upon the flowers, 

And all the air grew strangely sweet ! 
And thus came dainty Babie Bell 

Into this world of ours. 

II 

She came and brought delicious May. 

The swallows built beneath the eaves; 

Like sunlight in and out the leaves, 
The robins went, the livelong day; 
103 



104 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

The lily swung its noiseless bell, 

And o'er the porch the trembling vine 
Seemed bursting with its veins of wine ! 

How sweetly, softly, twilight fell ! 

O, earth was full of singing birds, 

And happy springtide flowers, 

When the dainty Babie Bell 
Came to this world of ours ! 



rn 

O Babie, dainty Babie Bell, 
How fair she grew from day to day ! 

What woman nature filled her eyes, 
What poetry within them lay ! 
Those deep and tender twilight eyes, 
So full of meaning, pure and bright 
As if she yet stood in the light 
Of those oped gates of Paradise ! 
And we loved Babie more and more: 
Ah, never in our hearts before 
Was love so lovely born : 
We felt we had a link between 
This real world and that unseen — 
The land beyond the morn ! 
And for the love of those dear eyes, 

For love of her whom God led forth, 
(The mother's being ceased on earth 
When Babie came from Paradise) — 
For love of Him who smote our lives, 

And woke the chords of joy and pain, 
We said, Sweet Christ! — our hearts bent down 
Like violets after rain. 



BABIE BELL 105 



IV 



And now the orchards, which in June 

Were white and rosy in their bloom — 
Filling the crystal veins of air 
With gentle pulses of perfume — 
Were rich in Autumn's mellow prime: 
The plums were globes of honeyed wine, 
The hived sweets of summer time ! 
The ivory chestnut burst its shell: 
The soft-cheeked peaches blushed and fell ! 
The grapes were purpling in the grange, 
And time brought just as rich a change 

In little Babie Bell. 
Her tiny form more perfect grew, 

And in her features we could trace, 
In softened curves, her mother's face! 
Her angel-nature ripened too. 
We thought her lovely when she came, 

But she was holy, saintly now . . . 

Around her pale angelic brow 
We saw a slender ring of flame ! 



God's hand had taken away the seal 

Which held the portals of her speech; 
And oft she said a few strange words 

Whose meaning lay beyond our reach. 
She never was a child to us, 
We never held her being's key: 
We could not teach her holy things: 
She was Christ's self in purity! 



Io6 ALDRICH'S POEMS 



VI 



It came upon us by degrees: 

We saw its shadow ere it fell, 

The knowledge that our God had sent 

His messenger for Babie Bell. 

We shuddered with unlanguaged pain, 

And all our hopes were changed to fears, 

And all our thoughts ran into tears 

Like sunshine into rain. 
We cried aloud in our belief, 

" O, smite us gently, gently, God ! 
Teach us to bend and kiss the rod, 
And perfect grow through grief." 
Ah, how we loved her, God can tell; 
Her little heart was cased in ours: 

Our hearts are broken, Babie Bell ! 



VII 



At last he came, the messenger, 

The messenger from unseen lands: 
And what did dainty Babie Bell? 
She only crossed her little hands, 
She only looked more meek and fair ! 
We parted back her silken hair; 
We laid some buds upon her brow, 
White buds, the summer's drifted snow 
Death's bride arrayed in flowers ! 
And thus went dainty Babie Bell 
Out of this world of ours ! 



SWALLOW-FLIGHTS 



CLOTH OF GOLD 

You ask us if by rule or no 

Our many-colored songs are wrought ? 

Upon the cunning loom of thought, 
We weave our fancies, so and so. 

The busy shuttle comes and goes 

Across the rhymes, and deftly weaves 
A tissue out of autumn leaves, 

With here a thistle, there a rose. 

With art and patience thus is made 
The poet's perfect Cloth of Gold : 
When woven so, nor moth nor mould 

Nor time, can make its colors fade. 



THE FADED VIOLET 

What thought is folded in thy leaves ! 
What tender thought, what speechless pain ! 
I hold thy faded lips to mine, 
Thou darling of the April rain ! 

I hold thy faded lips to mine, 
Though scent and azure tint are fled • — 
O dry, mute lips ! ye are the type 
Of something in me cold and dead: 

107 



108 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Of something wilted like thy leaves; 
Of fragrance flown, of beauty dim; 
Yet, for the love of those white hands 
That found thee by a river's brim — 

That found thee when thy sunny mouth 
Was purpled as with drinking wine — 
For love of her who love forgot, 
I hold thy faded lips to mine ! 

That thou shouldst live when I am dead, 
When hate is dead, for me, and wrong, 
For this, I use my subtlest art, 
For this, I fold thee in my song. 



MY NORTH AND SOUTH 

I am very, very fond 
Of. a blonde, 
Mistress Maud, and so come here; 
And yet, and yet, and yet 
I like a gay brunette, 
Therese, dear! 

O what can a body do 
With you two ? — 
Golden hair and rosy mouth ! 
Black hair and eyes of jet ! 
You blonde, and you brunette ! 
You North and South ! 

Now, I love you, eyes and curls, 
Little girls ! 



THE GHOST'S LADY 109 

Give me each a dainty hand: 

New England's hand shall lie 
On my heart, and yours near by — 
You understand? 



THE GHOST'S LADY 



Under the night, 

In the white moonshine, 
Look thou for me 
By the graveyard tree, 
Lady of mine, 
While the nightingales are in tune, 
And the quaint little snakes in the grass 
Lift their silver heads to the moon. 



Blushing with love, 

In the white moonshine, 
Lie in my arms, 
So, safe from alarms, 
Lady of mine, 
While the nightingales are in tune, 
And the quaint little snakes in the grass 
Lift their silver heads to the moon. 

3 

Paler art thou 

Than the white moonshine: 

Ho ! thou art lost — 

Thou lovest a Ghost, 
Lady of mine ! 



HO ALDRICH'S POEMS 

While the nightingales are in tune, 
And the quaint little snakes in the grass 
Lift their silver heads to the moon. 



WE KNEW IT WOULD RAIN 

We knew it would rain, for all the morn, 

A spirit on slender ropes of mist 
Was lowering its golden buckets down 

Into the vapory amethyst 

Of marshes and swamps and dismal fens — 
Scooping the dew that lay in the flowers, 

Dipping the jewels out of the sea, 
To sprinkle them over the land in showers ! 

We knew it would rain, for the poplars showed 
The white of their leaves, the amber grain 

Shrunk in the wind — and the lightning now 
Is tangled in tremulous skeins of rain ! 



AFTER THE RAIN 

The rain has ceased, and in my room 
The sunshine pours an orange flood; 
And on the church's dizzy vane 
The ancient Cross is bathed in blood. 

From out the dripping ivy-leaves, 
Antiquely-carven, gray and high, 
A dormer, facing westward, looks 
Upon the village like an eye: 



LAST NIGHT AND TO-NIGHT m 

And now it glimmers in the sun, 
A globe of gold, a disk, a speck: 
And in the belfry sits a Dove 
With purple ripples on her neck. 

A BALLAD 



The blackbird sings in the hazel dell, 
And the squirrel sits on the tree; 

And Maud she walks in the merry greenwood, 
Down by the summer sea. 



The blackbird lies when he sings of love; 

And the squirrel, a rogue is he;. 
And Maud is an arrant flirt I trow, 

And light as light can be ! 



O, blackbird, die in the hazel dell ! 

And, squirrel, starve on the tree ! 
And, Maud — you may walk in the merry green- 
wood, 

You are nothing more to me ! 

LAST NIGHT AND TO-NIGHT 

Last night my soul was lapped 

In shallow merriment: 
The sweet bee, Music, buzzed about my ears ! 
Swan-throated women, under chandeliers, 

Like odors came and went ! 



112 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

To-night I hate them all: 

It better suits my mind 
To walk where ocean sobs on pitiless crags, 
Bethinking me of foul sea-hags 

In noisome caves confined. 



TIGER-LILIES 

I like not lady-slippers, 

Nor yet the sweet-pea blossoms, 

Nor yet the flaky roses, 

Red, or white as snow; 
I like the chaliced lilies,. 
The heavy Eastern lilies, 
The gorgeous tiger-lilies, 

That in our garden grow ! 

For they are tall and slender; 

Their mouths are dashed with carmine; 

And when the wind sweeps by them, 

On their emerald stalks 
They bend so proud and graceful — 
They are Circassian women, 
The darlings of the harem 

Adown our garden-walks ! 

And when the rain is falling, 

I sit beside the window 

And watch them glow and glisten, 

How they burn and glow ! 
O for the burning lilies, 
The tender Eastern lilies, 
The gorgeous tiger-lilies, 

That in our garden grow ! 



MADAM, AS YOU PASS US BY 113 



THE BETROTHAL 

I have placed a golden 
Ring upon the hand 

Of the sweetest little 
Lady in the land ! 

When the early roses 
Scent the sunny air, 

I shall gather white ones 
To tremble in her hair ! 

Hasten, happy roses, 
Come to me by May — 

In your folded petals 
Lies my wedding day ! 



MADAM, AS YOU PASS US BY 

Madam, as you pass us by, 

Dreaming of your loves and wine, 

Do not brush your rich brocade 
Against this little maid of mine, 

Madam, as you pass us by. 

When in youth my blood was warm, 
Wine was royal, life complete; 

So I drained the flasks of wine, 
So I sat at woman's feet, 

When in youth my blood was warm. 

Time has taught me pleasant truths: 
Lilies grow where thistles grew: 



H4 



ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Ah, you loved me not. This maid 

Loves me. There's an end of you ! 
Time has taught me pleasant truths. 

I will speak no bitter words : 

Too much passion made me blind; 

You were subtle. Let it go ! 
For the sake of womankind 

I will speak no bitter words. 

But, Madam, as you pass us by, 
Dreaming of your loves and wine, 

Do not brush your rich brocade 
Against this little maid of mine, 

Madam, as you pass us by. 

THE MERRY BELLS SHALL RING 
i 
The merry bells shall ring, 

Marguerite; 
The little birds shall sing, 

Marguerite — 
You smile, but you shall wear 
Orange blossoms in your hair, 

Marguerite ! 
2 
Ah me ! the bells have rung 

Marguerite; 
The little birds have sung, 

Marguerite — 
But cypress leaf and rue 
Make a sorry wreath for you, 

Marguerite ! 



LITTLE MAUD 
MAY 

BY A POET IN CLOVER 

Hebe's here, May is here ! 

The air is fresh and sunny; 
And the fairy bees are busy 

Making golden honey ! 

See the knots of buttercups, 
And the double pansies — 

Thick as these, within my brain, 
Grow the quaintest fancies ! 

Let me write my songs to-day, 
Rhymes with dulcet closes — 

Tiny epics one might hide 
In the hearts of roses ! - 

What's the use of halcyon May, 
Of air so fresh and sunny, 

If such a busy bee as I 
Can't make golden honey? 

LITTLE MAUD 

O where is our dainty, our darling, 

The daintiest darling of all? 
O where is the voice on the stairway, 

O where is the voice in the hall? 
The little short steps in the entry, 

The silvery laugh in the hall? 
O where is our dainty, our darling, 

The daintiest darling of all, 
Little Maud ? 



"5 



Il6 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

The peaches are ripe in the orchard, 

The apricots ready to fall; 
And the grapes are dripping their honey 

All over the garden- wall — 
But where are the lips, full and melting, 

That looked up so pouting and red, 
When we dangled the sun-purpled bunches 

Of Isabells over her head? 
O rosebud of women ! where are you ? 

(She never replies to our call !) 
O where is our dainty, our darling, 

The daintiest darling of all, 
Little Maud? 

PERDITA 



Poet, shape a song for me 
Of troubled love, of jealousy, 

Of sick conceit; 
But make its rhymes as sad and sweet 
As parting kisses be ! 



Sing me merry, when I'm gay; 
But touch a mournful string to-day; 

The birds have flown, 
Save one, the Wind, that maketh moan 
Perdita's gone away ! 

NAMELESS PAIN 

In my nostrils the summer wind 

Blows the exquisite scent of the rose ! 



THE MOORLAND 117 

O for the golden, golden wind, 
Breaking the buds as it goes, 

Breaking the buds, 

And bending the grass, 
And spilling the scent of the rose! 

wind of the summer morn, 
Tearing the petals in twain, 

Wafting the fragrant soul 

Of the rose through valley and plain, 

1 would you could tear my heart to-day, 
And scatter its nameless pain. 

THE MOORLAND 

The moorland lies a dreary waste; 

The night is dark with drizzling rain; 
In yonder yawning cave of cloud 

The snaky lightning writhes with pain ! 
And the Wind is wailing bitterly. 

O sobbing rain, outside my door ! 

O wailing phantoms, make your moan ! 
Go through the night in blind despair — 

Your shadowy lips have touched my own ! 
And the Wind is wailing bitterly. 

No more the robin breaks its heart 

Of music in the pathless woods ! 
The ravens croak for such as I, 

The plovers screech above their broods. 
And the Wind is wailing bitterly. 

All mournful things are friends of mine, 
(That weary sound of falling leaves !) 



Il8 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Ah, there is not a kindred soul 

For me on earth, but moans and grieves ! 
And the Wind is wailing bitterly. 

I cannot sleep this lonesome night; 

The ghostly rain goes by in haste, 
And, further than the eye can reach, 

The moorland lies a dreary waste ! 
And the Wind is wailing bitterly. 



AT THE DEAD-HOUSE 

" Drown'd ! drown'd ! " — Hamlet. 

Here is where they bring the dead 
When they rise from the river's bed, 
Sinful women who have thrown 
Away the life they would not own — 
Life despised and trampled down ! 

Sad enough. Now, you who write 

Plays that give the world delight, 

Tell me if in this there be 

Naught for your new tragedy? 

Ha ! you start, you turn from me 

A face brimful of misery ! 

Do you know that woman there, 

That icy image of Despair? 

Have you heard her softly speak? 

Have you kissed her, lips and cheek ? 

Faith ! you do not kiss her now ! 

Poor young mouth, and pale young brow, 

Drenched hair, and glassy eye — 

Go, put that in your tragedy ! 



PALAB-RAS CARINOSAS 1 19 

SONG 



Maiden Maud and Marian 
Have not passed me by — 

Arched foot and red-ripe mouth, 
And bronze-brown eye ! 



When my hair is gray, 
Then I shall be wise; 

Then I shall not care 
For bronze-brown eyes. 

3 

Then let maiden Maud 
And Marian pass me by; 

So they do not scorn me now 
What care I? 



PALABRAS CARINOSAS 

Good night ! I have to say good night 
To such a host of peerless things ! 
Good night unto that snowy hand 
All queenly with its weight of rings ! 
Good night to fond, delicious eyes, 
Good night to chestnut braids of hair, 
Good night unto the perfect mouth, 
And all the sweetness nestled there — 
The snowy hand detains me, then 
I'll have to say Good night again ! 



120 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

But there will come a time, my love, 

When, if I read our stars aright, 

I shall not linger by this porch 

With my adieus. Till then, good night ! 

You wish the time were now? And I. 

You do not blush to wish it so ? 

You would have blushed yourself to death 

To own so much a year ago — 

What, both these snowy hands ! ah, then, 
I'll have to say Good night again ! 

I SAT BESIDE YOU WHILE YOU SLEPT 

I sat beside you while you slept, 

And Christ ! but it was woe 
To see the long dark lashes rest 

Upon your cheeks of snow, 
To see you lie so happily, 

And to think you did not know 
What a weary, weary world is this, 

While you were sleeping so ! 

You are dearer than my soul, love, 

But in that hour of pain, 
I wished that you might never lift 

Those eyes to mine again, 
Might never weep, but lie in sleep 

While the long seasons roll — 
I wished this, I who love you, love, 

Better than my soul ! 
And then — I cannot tell what then, 

But that I might not weep 
I caught you in my arms, love, 

And kissed you from your sleep. 



IN THE WOODS 121 



DEAD 



I heard a sorrowful woman say, 
" Come in and look at our child ! " 

I saw an Angel at shut of day, 
And it never spoke — but smiled ! 
I think of it in the city's streets, 

I dream of it when I rest — 
The violet eyes, the waxen hands, 

And the one white rose on the breast ! 

IN THE WOODS 

The summer birds are in the summer sky: 
I hear the music of the woods again, 
The wild wind-symphonies that moan and die 
On hemlock harps with such a sad refrain. 

I long for him who knew so well these tones; 
He loved this greening world of scented vines, 
This slumberous air that stirs the chestnut cones, 
And wafts an odor from the gummy pines. 

Here do the slim imperial tulips blow, 
And those ground-flowers that seem like clots of blood 
On the green grass : and here do lilies grow — 
The pale-faced Dryads of the summer wood ! 

All pleasant noises, all delicious smells, 
All things whereof our poets' songs are born — 
Alas ! that painful Autumn through these dells 
Should moaning come, and make the place forlorn. 

Autumn will come; the fretful winds will blow; 
The rain will weep for Summer in the grave; 



122 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Then Winter — building palaces of snow 
With crystal vestibule and architrave. 

Shadow of sorrow, brood upon the place ! 
Here did I part with one who nevermore 
Shall hunt for Spring's first violet, nor chase 
The hungry fox when woods and fields are hoar. 

AUTUMNALIA 

When marigolds heaped lie like ingots of gold, 
And the snowy syringas their petals unfold, 
I drink the warm sunshine, I dream in the grass, 
I shout to the swallows that over me pass; 
And thoughts of dull Winter go out of my mind, 
For I lie in the lap of the Summer Wind, 

Singing so cheerily, 

Living so merrily. 

But when I see stretched through the desolate night 
The menacing hand of the weird Northern Light; 
When the leaves have turned sere, and the tulips are 

dead, 
And the beautiful sumacs are burning with red; 
Then a Vision of Death comes over my mind, 
And I shrink from the touch of the Autumn Wind, 
Sighing so wearily, 
Living so drearily. 

SONG 



It was with doubt and trembling 
I whispered in her ear; 



BARBARA 123 



O take her answer, bonny bird, 
That all the world may hear ! 



Sing it, sing it, Silver-throat, 
Upon the wayside tree, 

How fair she is, how true she is, 
And how she loveth me ! 



Sing it, sing it, Silver-throat, 
And all the summer long 

The other birds shall envy you 
For knowing such a song S 

BARBARA 

Barbara hath a falcon's eye, 

And a soft white hand hath Barbara; 
Beware — for to make you wish to die, 
To make you as pale as the moon or I, 

Is a pet trick with Barbara ! 

Merrily bloweth the summer wind, 

But cold and cruel is Barbara ! 
And I, a Duke, stand here like a hind, 
Too happy, i' faith, if I am struck blind 
By the quick look of Barbara ! 

Ay, Sweetmou', you are haughty now: 

Time was, time was, my Barbara, 
When I covered your lips and brow 
And bosom with kisses — faith, 'tis snow 
That was all fire then, Barbara ! 



124 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

For whom shall you hold Agatha's ring? 

Whom will you love next, Barbara? 
Choose from the Court — your page or the King ? 
Or one of those sleek-limbed fellows who bring 

Rose-colored notes "For Barbara"? 

Love the King, by all that is good ! 

Make eyes at him, sing to him, Barbara ! 
I think you might please his royal mood 
For a month, and then — what then if he should 

Fling you aside, Queen Barbara? 

You might die out there on the moor, 

(Where Rouel died for you, Barbara !) 
For the world, you know, sets little store 
On beauty, and charity closes the door 
On fallen divinity, Barbara ! 

But if his Majesty grew so cold — 

In the dead of night, my Barbara, 
I'd go to his chamber, Hate is bold, 
And strangle him there in his purple and gold, 

And lay him beside you, Barbara ! 



IT WAS A KNIGHT OF ARAGON 

[SPANISH] 

" Fuerte qual azero entre armas, 
Y qual cera entre las damas." 



It was a Knight of Aragon, and he was brave to see, 
His helmet and his hauberk, and the greaves upon his 
knee : 



WHEN THE SULTAN GOES TO ISPAHAN 125 

His escuderos rode in front, his cavaliers behind, 
With stained plumes and gonfalons, and music in the 
wind. 

2 

It was the maid Prudencia, the rosebud of Madrid, 
Who watched him from her balcony, among the 

jasmines hid. 
"O, Virgin Mother!" quoth the Knight, "is that the 

daybreak there ?" — 
It was the saintly light that shone above the maiden's 

hair! 



Then he who crossed the Pyrenees to fight the dogs of 

France, 
Grew pale with love for her whose look had pierced 

him like a lance; 
And they will wed the morrow morn: beat softly, 

happy stars ! — 
And, mind you, gallant cavaliers, how Venus conquers 

Mars, 

WHEN THE SULTAN GOES TO ISPAHAN 

[ARABIC] 

When the Sultan Shah-Zaman 
Goes to the city Ispahan, 
Even before he gets so far 

As the place where the clustered palm-trees are, 
At the last of the thirty palace-gates, 
The Pet of the Harem, Rose-in-Bloom, 
Orders a feast in his favorite room — 
Glittering squares of colored ice, 



126 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Sweetened with syrop, tinctured with spice, 

Creams, and cordials, and sugared dates, 

Syrian apples, Othmanee quinces, 

Limes, and citrons, and apricots, 

And wines that are known to Eastern princes 

And Nubian slaves, with smoking pots 

Of spiced meats and costliest fish 

And all that the daintiest palate could wish, 

Pass in and out of the golden doors ! 

Scattered over mosaic floors 

Are anemones, myrtles, and violets, 

And a musical fountain throws its jets 

Of an hundred colors into the air ! 

The dusk Sultana loosens her hair, 

And stains with the henna-plant the tips 

Of her pearly nails, and bites her lips 

Till they seem to pout like that rarest rose 

Which only for Sultans buds and blows ! 

Then at a wave of her sunny hand, 
The dancing-girls of Samarcand 
Float in like mists from Fairy-land ! 
And to the low voluptuous swoons 
Of music rise and fall the moons 
Of their full brown bosoms. Orient blood 
Runs in their veins, shines in their eyes: 
And there, in this Eastern Paradise, 
Filled with the fumes of sandal-wood, 
And Khoten musk, and aloes and myrrh, 
Sits Rose-in-Bloom on a silk divan, 
Sipping the wines of Astrakhan; 
And her Arab lover sits with her ! 
That's when the Sultan Shah-Zaman 
Goes to the city Ispahan! 



L'ENVOI 127 

Now, when I see an extra light, 
Flaming, flickering on the night 
From my neighbor's window opposite, 
I know as well as I know to pray, 
I know as well as a tongue can say, 
That the innocent Sultan Shah-Zaman 
Has gone to the city Ispahan! 
I rather think my neighbor's wife 
Is leading this Orient sort of life ! 



L'ENVOI 

Men turn to angels when dead. 
A thought grows into a Song: 
Everything ripens with time, 
Or I and my rhyme are wrong. 

The May-moon blossomed, and grew, 
And withered, the flower full-blown; 
But out of the ruined moon 
The beautiful June has grown ! 

O ye Poets that sit i' the sun, 
Your brows with the laurel moist, 
When shall I sit and sing with you, 
Sweet-thoughted and silver- voiced ? 



POEMS AND BALLADS 
INFELICISSIMUS 



I walked with him one melancholy night 

Down by the sea, upon the moonlit strands, 
While in the dreary heaven the Northern Light 
Beckoned with flaming hands — 

II 

Beckoned and vanished, like a woful ghost 

That fain would lure us to some dismal wood, 
And tell us tales of ships that have been lost, 
Of violence and blood. 

in 

And where yon daedal rocks o'erhang the froth, 

We sat together, Lycidas and I, 
Watching the great star-bear that in the North 
Guarded the midnight sky. 

IV 

And while the moonlight wrought its miracles, 
Drenching the world with silent silver rain, 
He spoke of life and its tumultuous ills: 
He told me of his pain. 
128 



INFELICISSIMUS 



129 



He said his life was like the troubled sea 

With autumn brooding over it: and then 
Spoke of his hopes, of what he yearned to be, 
And what he might have been. 

VI 

"I hope," said Lycidas, "for peace at last, 
I only ask for peace ! My god is Ease ! 
Day after day some rude Iconoclast 
Breaks all my images ! 

VII 

"There is a better life than I have known — 

A surer, purer, sweeter life than this: 
There is another, a celestial zone, 

Where I shall know of bliss." 

VIII 

So, close his eyes, and cross his helpless hands, 
And lay the flowers he loved upon his breast; 
For time and death have stayed the golden sands 
That ran with such unrest ! 

IX 

You weep : I smile : I know that he is dead, 

So is his passion, and 'tis better so ! 
Take him, O Earth, and round his lovely head 
Let countless roses blow ! 



13° 



ALDRICH'S POEMS 



A BALLAD OF NANTUCKET 

"Where go you, pretty Maggie, 
Where go you in the rain?" 

"I go to ask the sailors 
Who sailed the Spanish main, 

"If they have seen my Willie, 
If he'll come back to me — 

It is so sad to have him 
A-sailing on the sea ! " 

"O Maggie, pretty Maggie, 
Turn back to yonder town ; 

Your Willie's in the ocean, 
A hundred fathoms down ! 

"His hair is turned to sea-pelt, 
His eyes are changed to stones, 

And twice two years have knitted 
The coral round his bones ! 

"The blossoms and the clover 
Shall bloom and bloom again, 

But never shall your lover 

Come o'er the Spanish main ! " 

But Maggie never heeded, 
For mournfully said she: 

"It is so sad to have him 
A-sailing on the sea ! " 

She left me in the darkness: 
I heard the sea-gulls screech, 



THE SPENDTHRIFT'S FEAST 131 

And burly winds were growling 
With breakers on the beach ! 

The blithe bells of Nantucket, 
What touching things they said, 

When Maggie lay a-sleeping 
With lilies round her head ! 

The parson preached a sermon, 
And prayed and preached again — 

But she had gone to Willie 
Across the Spanish main ! 

THE SPENDTHRIFT'S FEAST 

[from a play] 

To-night we sup with Fiole — 

We shall be delicately banqueted. 

But do you know wherewith he pays for this? 

No? Then I'll tell you; it is laughable. 

A week ago his miserly father died — 

Despite his swollen money-bags, he died — 

But not a para of his hoarded wealth 

Goes to Fiole. No; he builds a church 

And gives it candles for a century, 

Endows a hospital, and God knows what, 

And only leaves that precious son of his 

An antique drinking-cup all rough with gems 

And moist with the grapes' bleeding — a shrewd hit 

At Fiole, whose lady-love is Wine. 

Neat, was it not? and worthy of the Count. 

Well, this gold satire, this begemmed lampoon, 

Fiole pawns to Jacobi the Jew, 

And we're to dine on it ! 



132 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

A PASTORAL HYMN TO THE FAIRIES 



O ye little tricksy gods ! 
Tell me where ye sleep o' nights, 
Where ye laugh and weep o' nights ! 

Is it in the velvet pods 

Of the drooping violets — 

In the purple palaces, 

Scooped and shaped like chalices? 
Or beneath the silver bend, 
In among the cooling jets, • 
Of Iris-haunted, wood cascades 
That tumble down from porphyry heights? 

Do ye doze in rose-leaf boats 

Where the dreamy streamlet floats, 

Full of fish and phosphorus motes, 
Through the heart of quiet glades? 



11 



When we crush a pouting bloom, 
Ten to one we kill a Fairy ! 
May be that the light perfume 
In our nostrils, sweet and airy, 
Is the spirit of the Fairy 
Floating upward. O, be wary! 
Who can tell what size or make 
The wilful little beings take? 
There's a bird; now, who can say 
'Tis a Robin or a Fay? 
Why may not immortal things 
Go on red and yellow wings ! 



THE UNFORGIVEN 133 

Ah ! if so the Fairies bide 

Round us, with us, tell me why 

Is their silver speech denied? 
Are they deafened to my cry? 

in 

If you ask me why my song 

Morn, and noon, and night complains, 
I will tell you. . . . Long ago, 

When the orchards and the lanes 
Were, with fragrant apple-blooms, 

White as in a fall of snow, 
It was then we missed a Voice — 

It was little Mary's ! 
For one morn she wandered forth, 
In the springtime of the earth, . 

And was lost among the Fairies ! 
So I go in pensive moods 

Through the shadows, by the brooks, 
Talking to the solemn woods, 

Peering into mossy nooks, 

Asking sadly, now and then, 

After tiny maids and men ! 
For my thoughts are with the child, 
All my heart is gone with Mary's — 

O, sad day she fled away, 
And was lost among the Fairies ! 

THE UNFORGIVEN 

Near my bed, there, hangs the picture, jewels could 

not buy from me: 
'Tis a Siren, a fair Siren, in her seaweed drapery, 
Playing on a lute of amber, by the margin of a sea ! 



134 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

In the east, the rose of morning biddeth fair to blossom 

soon, 
But it never, never blossoms, in this picture; and the 

moon 
Never ceases to be crescent, and the June is always 

June ! 

And the heavy-branched banana never yields its 

creamy fruit; 
In the citron trees are nightingales forever stricken 

mute; 
And the Siren sits, her fingers on the pulses of her lute ! 

In the hushes of the midnight, when my heliotropes 

grow strong 
With the dampness, I hear music — hear a quiet, 

plaintive song — 
A most sad, melodious utterance, as of some immortal 

wrong — 

Like the pleading, oft repeated, of a Soul that pleads 

in vain, 
Of a damned Soul repentant, that cannot be pure 

again ! — 
And I lie awake and listen, with an agony of brain ! 

O, the mystical, wild music ! how it melts into the 

white 
Of the moon that turns the sombre, brooding shadows 

into light ! 
How it sobs itself to slumber in the quiets of the night ! 

And whence comes this mournful music ? — whence, 

unless it chance to be 
From the Siren, the sad Siren, in her seaweed drapery, 
Playing on a lute of amber, by the margin of a sea ! 



A POET'S GRAVE 



A POET'S GRAVE 



135 



In this pleasant beechen shade 
Where the wild-rose blossoms red, 
Lieth one who, being dead, 
Is neither matron, man, nor maid. 

But once he wore the form of God, 
And walked the earth with meaner things: 
Death snapt him. See ! above him springs 
The very grass whereon he trod ! 

Let the world swing to and fro, 
The slant rain fall, the wind blow strong: 
Time cannot do him any wrong 
While he is wrapped and cradled so ! 

Ah, much he suffered in his day: 
He knelt with Virtue, kissed with Sin — 
Wild Passion's child, and Sorrow's twin, 
A meteor that had lost its way ! 

He walked with goblins, ghouls, and things 
Unsightly, — terrors and despairs ; 
And ever in the starry airs 
A dismal raven flapped its wings ! 

He died. Six people bore his pall; 
And three were sorry, three were not: 
They buried him, and then forgot 
His very grave — the lot of all ! 

But strains of music here and there, 
Weird children whom nobody owns, 
Are blown across the fragrant zones 
Forever in the midnight air ! 



136 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

INVOCATION TO SLEEP 



There is a sleep for all things. On still nights 

There is a folding of a million wings — 
The purple honey-bees in unknown woods, 
The speckled butterflies, and downy broods 

In dizzy poplar heights : 
Sleep for innumerable nameless things, 
Sleep for the creatures underneath the sea, 

And in the Earth, and in the starry Air ! . . . 
If easeful sleep so universal be, 

Why will it not unburden me of care ? 

It comes to meaner things than my despair ! 
O weary, weary night, that brings no rest to me ! 

11 

Spirit of dreams and silvern memories, 

Delicate Sleep ! 
One who is sickening of his tiresome days, 
Brings thee a soul that he would have thee keep 
A captive in thy mystical domain, 
'Mong wild Puck-fancies, and the grotesque train 
That do inhabit slumber. Give his sight 
Immortal shapes, and bring to him again 
His Psyche that went out into the night ! 

in 

Thou who dost hold the keys of rest, 
Strew lotus-leaves and poppies on my breast — 
Narcotic buds from misty Godland. brought. 



A GREAT MAN'S DEATH 137 

The flowers of Lethe! Then with viewless hand 

Lead me into thy castle, in the land 
Touched with all colors like a burning west, 
The Castle o' Vision, where the feet of thought 
Wander at will upon enchanted ground, 
Fall like quick blossoms, making not a sound 

In all the corridors. . . . 
The bell sleeps in the belfry — from its tongue 
A drowsy murmur floats into the air, 
Like thistle-down. Slumber is everywhere. 
The rook's asleep, and, in its dreaming, caws; 
And silence mopes where orioles have sung; 
The Sirens lie in grottos cool and deep : 
The lily-wreathed Naiades in streams: 
But I, in chilling twilight, stand and wait 
On the portcullis, at thy castle gate, 
Yearning to see the golden door of dreams 
Turn on the noiseless hinges of a sleep ! 

A GREAT MAN'S DEATH 

To-day a god died. Never any more 
Shall man look on him. Never any more, 
In hall or senate, shall his eloquent voice 
Give hope to a sick nation. In his prime 
Not all the world could daunt him : yet a ghost, 
A poor mute ghost, a something we call Death, 
Has silenced him forever! Let the land 
Look for his peer : he hath not yet been found. 

A crimson bird, of not so many days 
As there are leaves upon the wildling rose, 
Sings from yon sycamore ; this violet 
Sprung up an hour since from the fibrous earth : 



138 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

At noon the rain fell, and to-night the sun 

Will sink with its old splendor in the sea ! — 

And yet to-day a god died. . . . Nature smiles 

On our mortality. A robin's death, 

Or the unnoticed falling of a leaf, 

Is more to her than when a great man dies ! 

THE BLUEBELLS OF NEW ENGLAND 

The roses are a regal troop, 

And humble folks the daisies; 
But, Bluebells of New England, 

To you I give my praises — 
To you, fair phantoms in the sun, 

Whom merry Spring discovers, 
With bluebirds for your laureates, 

And honey-bees for lovers ! 

The south-wind breathes, and lo ! ye throng 

This rugged land of ours — 
Methinks the pale blue clouds of May 

Drop down, and turn to flowers ! 
By cottage doors along the roads, 

You show your winsome faces, 
And, like the spectre lady, haunt 

The lonely woodland places. 

All night your eyes are closed in sleep, 

But open at the dawning; 
Such simple faith as yours can see 

God's coming in the morning ! 
You lead me by your holiness, 

To pleasant ways of duty: 
You set my thoughts to melody, 

You fill me with your beauty. 



A LEGEND OF ELSINORE 139 

And you are like the eyes I love, 

So modest and so tender, 
Just touched with morning's glorious light, 

And evening's gentle splendor. 
Long may the heavens give you rain, 

The sunshine its caresses, 
Long may the little girl I love 

Entwine you in her tresses. 

A LEGEND OF ELSINORE 

O but she had not her peer ! 

In the kingdom far or near, 
There were never such brown tresses, such a faultless 
hand: 

She had youth, and she had gold, 

She had jewels all untold; 

And many a lover bold 
Wooed the Lady of the Land. 

But, alack ! they won not Maud, 

Neither belted knight nor lord: 
"Woo me not, for Jesus' sake, good gentlemen," she 
said. 

If they wooed, then, — with a frown 

She would strike their passion down. 

O she might have wed a crown 
To the ringlets on her head ! 

From the dizzy castle tips, 
She would watch the silent ships, 
Like sheeted phantoms, coming and going evermore, 
While the twilight settled down 
On the sleepy little town. 



140 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

On the gables peaked and brown, 
That had sheltered kings of yore. 

Her blue eyes drank in the sight, 

With a full and still delight; 
For it was as fair a scene as aught in Arcadie : 

Through the yellow-beaded grain, 

Through the hamlet-studded plain, 

Like a trembling azure vein, 
Ran the river to the sea. 

Spotted belts of cedarwood 
Partly clasped the widening flood; 

Like a knot of daisies lay the hamlets on the hill ; 
In the ancient town below, 
Sparks of light would come and go, 
And faint voices, strangely low, 

From the garrulous old mill. 

Here the land, in grassy swells, 

Gently rose; there, sank in dells 
With wide mouths of crimson moss, and teeth of rock 
and peat; 

Here, in statue-like repose, 

An old wrinkled mountain rose, 

With its hoary head in snows 
And musk-roses at its feet ! 

And so oft she sat alone, 
In the turret of gray stone, 
Looking o'er red miles of heath, dew-dabbled, to the 
sea, 
That there grew a village cry, 
How Maud's cheeks did lose their dye, 



A LEGEND OF ELSINORE 141 

As a ship, once, sailing by, 
Melted on the sapphire lea. 

"Lady Maud," they said, "is vain; 

With a cold and fine disdain 
She walks o'er mead and moorland, she wanders by 
the sea — 

Sits within her tower alone, 

Like (Enone carved in stone, 

Like the queen of half a zone, 
Ah, so icy-proud is she!" 

When Maud walked abroad, her feet 
Seemed far sweeter than the sweet 

Wild flowers that would follow her with iridescent eyes ; 
And the spangled eglantine, 
And the honeysuckle vine, 
Running round and round the pine 

Grew tremulous with surprise. 

But she passed by with a stare, 

With a half -unconscious air, 
Making waves of amber froth, upon a sea of maize: 

With her large and heavenly eyes 

Looking through and through the skies, 

As if God's rich paradise, 
Were growing upon her gaze ! 

Her lone walks led all one way, 
And all ended at the gray 
And the ragged, jagged rocks, that tooth the dreadful 
beach; 
There Queen Maud would stand, the Sweet ! 
With the white surf at her feet, 



142 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

While above her wheeled the fleet 
Sparrow-hawk with startling screech. 

When the stars had blossomed bright, 

And the gardens of the night 
Were full of golden marigolds, and violets astir, 

Lady Maud would sit alone, 

And the sea with inner tone, 

Half of melody and moan, 
Would rise up and speak with her. 

And she ever loved the sea — 

God's half -uttered mystery — 
With its million lips of shells, its. never ceasing roar 

And 'twas well that, when she died, 

They made Maud a grave beside 

The blue pulses of the tide, 
'Mong the crags of Elsinore. 

One chill, red leaf-falling morn, 

Many russet Autumns gone, 
A lone ship with folded wings, lay dozing off the lea 

It had lain throughout the night, 

With its wings of murky white 

Folded, after weary flight — 
The worn nursling of the sea ! 

Crowds of peasants flocked the sands; 

There were tears and clasping hands; 
And a sailor from the ship passed through the kirk- 
yard gate. 

Then amid the grass that crept, 

Fading, over her who slept, 

How he hid his face and wept, 
Crying, "Late, alas! too late!" 



PASSING ST. HELENA 



143 



And they called her cold. God knows . . . 

Underneath the winter snows, 
The invisible hearts of flowers grow ripe for blossom- 
ing ! _ 

And the lives that look so cold, 

If their stories could be told, 

Would seem cast in gentler mould, 
Would seem full of love and spring. 



PASSING ST. HELENA 

And this is St. Helena ? This the spot 

Haunted forever by an Emperor ! 

Methinks 'twere meet that such a royal ghost 

Should pace these gloomy battlements by night ! 

— The ship veered off, and we passed out to sea : 

And in the first fair moonrise of the month, 

I watched the island, till it seemed a speck 

No bigger than Astarte. Year by year, 

The picture came and went upon my brain, 

Like frost-work on the windows : in my dreams 

I saw those jagged turrets of dull rock 

Uplifted in the moonlight : saw the gulls 

Darting in sudden circles; heard the low 

And everlasting anthem of the sea ! 

And from the nether world a voice would come, 

Here did they bring the Corsican, and here 

Died the chained eagle by these dismal cliffs! 



THE SET OF TURQUOISE 



DRAMATIS PERSONS 

Count of Lara, A poor nobleman. 

Beatrice, His wife. 

Florian, ) __ 

v jy er dressing-maids. 

Jacinta, ) 

A Page, for the occasion. 
The scene is laid in the vicinity of Mantua. 



THE SET OF TURQUOISE 

A DRAMATIC SKETCH 

Scene I. — Count of Lara's villa. ' A balcony 
overlooking the garden. Moonlight. Lara and 
Beatrice 

LARA 

The third moon of our marriage, Beatrice ! 
It hangs i' the heaven, ripe and ready to drop, 
Like a great golden orange — 

BEATRICE 

Excellent ! 

Breathe not the priceless simile abroad, 

Or all the poetlings in Mantua 

Will cut the rind of 't ! Like an orange ? yes, 

But not so red, Count. Then it hath no stem, 

And ripened out of nothing. 

LARA 

Critical ! 

Make thou a neater poesy for the moon. 

BEATRICE 

Now, as 'tis hidden by those drifts of cloud, 

With one thin edge just glimmering through the dark, 

'Tis like some strange, rich jewel of the east, 

I' the cleft side of a mountain. 

LARA 

Not unlike ! 

147 



148 ALDRICH'S POEMS 



BEATRICE 

And that reminds me — speaking of jewels — love, 
There is a set of turquoise at Malan's, 
Ear-drops and bracelets and a necklace — ah ! 
If they were mine ! 

LARA 

And so they should be, dear, 

Were I Aladdin, and had slaves o' the lamp 

To fetch me ingots. Why, then, Beatrice, 

All Persia's turquoise-quarries should be yours, 

Although your hand is heavy now with gems 

That tear my lips when I would kiss its whiteness. 

Oh ! so you pout ! Why make that full-blown rose 

Into a bud again? 

BEATRICE 

You love me not. 

LARA 

A coquette's song. 

BEATRICE 

I sing it. 

LARA 

A poor song. 

BEATRICE 

You love me not, or love me over-much, 
Which makes you jealous of the gems I wear ! 
You do not deck me as becomes our state, 
For fear my grandeur should besiege the eyes 
Of Monte, Clari, Marcus, and the rest — 
A precious set ! You're jealous, Sir ! 

LARA 

Not I. 

I love you. 



THE SET OF TURQUOISE 149 



BEATRICE 

Why, that is as easy said 

As any three short words; takes no more breath 

To say, "I hate you." What, Sir, have I lived 

Three times four weeks your wedded loyal wife, 

And do not knqw your follies ? I will wager 

(If I could trap' my darling into this !) [Aside. 

The sweetest kisses I know how to give 

Against the turquoise, that within a month 

You'll grow so jealous — and without a cause, 

Or with a reason thin as window-glass — 

That you will ache to kill me! 

LARA 

Will you so? 

And I — let us clasp hands and kiss on it. 

BEATRICE 

Clasp hands, Sir Trustful ; but not kiss — nay, nay ! 
I will not pay my forfeit till I lose. 

LARA 

And I'll not lose the forfeit. 

BEATRICE 

We shall see. 

Beatrice [enter/ the house singing] 

There was an old earl and he wed a young wife, 

Heigh ho, the bonny. 
And he was as jealous as Death is of Life, 

Heigh ho, the nonny ! 

Kings saw her, and sighed; 

And wan lovers died, 



150 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

But no one could win the bright honey 
That lay on the lips of the bonny 

Young bride, 
Until Cupid, the rover, a-hearting would go, 

Then — heigh ho ! [Exit. 

LARA 

She hath as many fancies as the wind 

Which now, like slumber, lies 'mong spicy isles, 

Then suddenly blows white furrows in the sea! 

Lovely and dangerous is my leopardess. 

To-day, low-lying at my feet; to-morrow, 

With great eyes flashing, threatening doleful death — 

With strokes like velvet ! She's no common clay, 

But fire and dew and marble. I'll not throw 

So rare a wonder in the lap o' the world ! 

Jealous ? I am not jealous — though they say 

Some sorts of love breed jealousy. And yet, 

I would I had not wagered. It implies 

Doubt. If I doubted ? Pshaw ! I'll walk awhile 

And let the cool air fan me. [Paces the balcony. 

'Twas not wise. 

It's only Folly with its cap and bells 

Can jest with sad things. She seemed earnest, too. 

What if, to pique me, she should overstep 

The pale of modesty, and give sweet eyes 

(I could not bear that, nay, not even that !) 

To Marc or Claudian ?• Why, such things have been 

And no sin dreamed of. I will watch her close. 

There, now, I wrong her. S he is wild -enough, 

Playing the empress in her honeymoons : 

But untamed falcons will not wear the hood 

Nor sit on the wrist, at bidding. Yet if she, 

T© win the turquoise of me, if she should — 



THE SET OF TURQUOISE 151 

Oh ! cursed jewels ! would that they were hung 
About the glistening neck of some mermaiden 
A thousand fathoms underneath the sea ! 



Scene II. — A garden : the villa seen in the back- 
ground. Lara stretched on the grass with a copy of 
Boccaccio's "Decameron" in his hand. Sunset 

lara [closing the book] 

A book for sunset — if for any time. 

Right spicy tongues and pleasant wit had they, 

The merry Ladies of Boccaccio ! 

What tales they told of love-in-idleness, 

(Love old as earth, and yet forever new !) 

Of monks who worshipped Venus — not in vain ; 

Of unsuspecting husbands, and gay dames 

Who held their vows but lightly — by my faith, 

Too much of the latter ! 'Tis a sweet, bad book. 

I would not have my sister or my wife 

Caught by its cunning. In its golden words 

Sin is so draped with beauty, speaks so fair, 

That naught seems wrong but virtue ! Yet, for all, 

It is a sprightly volume, and kills care. 

I need such sweet physicians. I have grown 

Sick in the mind — at swords' points with myself. 

I am mine own worst enemy ! 

And wherefore? wherefore? Beatrice is kind, 

Less fanciful, and loves me, I would swear, 

Albeit she will not kiss me till the month 

Which ends our foolish wager shall have passed. 

An hundred years, and not a single kiss 

To sweeten time with ! What a freakish dame ! 

[A Page crosses the garden. 



152 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

That page again ! 'Tis twice within the week 
That slender- waisted, pretty-ankled knave 
Has crossed my garden at this self-same hour, 
Trolling a canzonetta with an air 
As if he owned the villa. Why, the fop ! 
He might have doffed his bonnet as he passed. 
I'll teach him better if he comes again. 
What does he at the villa ? Oh ! perchance 
He comes in the evening when his master's out, 
To lisp soft romance in the ready ear 
Of Beatrice's dressing-maid; but then 
She has one lover. Now I think she's two: 
This gaudy popinjay would make- the third, 
And that's too many for an honest girl ! 
If he's not Florian's, he's Jacinta's, then? 
I'll ask the Countess — no, I'll not do that; 
She'd laugh at me, and vow by the Madonna 
This varlet was some noble in disguise, 
Seeking her favor. Then I'd crack his skull — 
That is, I would, were I a jealous man : 
But then I'm not. So he may come and go 
To Florian — or the devil ! I'll not care. 
I -would not build around my lemon-trees, 
Though every lemon were a sphere of gold, 
A lattice-fence, for fear the very birds 
Should sing, You're jealous, you are jealous, Sir! 

Scene III. — A wooded road near the villa. The 
garden gate seen on the left. Lara leaning against 
a tree. Evening 

LARA 

Sorrow itself is not so hard to bear 

As the thought of sorrow coming. Airy ghosts, 



THE SET OF TURQUOISE 153 

That work no harm, do terrify us more 
Than men in steel with bloody purposes. 
Death is not dreadful ; 'tis the dread of death — 
We die whene'er we think of it ! 

^-g-CPTieppd Irmgar When the page comes out 

I'll stop him, question him, and know the truth. 

I cannot sit" in the garden of tr night 

But- he glided by me in his jaunty dress, 

Like a fantastic phantom ! -^never }ooki 

To <feke right ^or left, but passes gayly on, 

As if I were a statue. Soft, he comes, 

I'll make him speak, or kill him; then, forsooth, 

It were unreasonable to ask it. Soh ! 

I'll speak him gently at the first, and then — 

[The Page enters by a gate in the villa- garden , 
and walks carelessly past the Count. 

Ho! pretty page, who owns you? 

PAGE 

No one now. 

I was the Signor Juan's, but am no more. 

LARA 

What, then, you stole from him? 

PAGE 

Oh ! no, Sir, no. 

He had so many intrigues on his hands, 
There was no sleep for me nor night nor day. 
Such carrying of love-favors and pink notes ! 
He's gone abroad now, to break other hearts, 
And so I left him. 



154 ALDRICH'S POEMS 



LARA 

A frank knave. 

PAGE 

To-night 

I've done his latest bidding — 

LARA 

As you should — 

PAGE 

A duty wed with pleasure — 'twas to take 
A message to a countess all forlorn, 
In yonder villa. 

lara [aside] 

Why, the devil ! that's mine ! 

A message to a countess all forlorn ? 

[To the Page.] In yonder villa? 

PAGE 

Ay, Sir. You can see 

The portico among the mulberries, 

Just to the left, there. 

LARA 

Ay, I see, I see. 

A pretty villa. And the lady's name? 

PAGE 

Ah ! that's a secret which I cannot tell. 

lara [catching him by the throat] 

No? but you shall, though, or I'll strangle you! 
In my strong hands your slender neck would snap 
Like a brittle pipe-stem. 



THE SET OF TURQUOISE 155 



PAGE 

You are choking me ! 

Oh ! loose your grasp, Sir ! 

LARA 

Then the name ! the name ! 

PAGE 

Countess of Lara. 

LARA 

Not her dressing-maid? 

PAGE 

Nay, nay, I said the mistress, not the maid. 

LARA 

And then you lied. Oh ! woful, woful Time ! — 
Tell me you lie, and I will make you rich, 
I'll stuff your cap with ducats twice a year ! 

page [smiling] 
Well, then — I lie. 

LARA 

Ay, now you lie, indeed ! 

I see it in the cunning of your eyes; 

Night cannot hide the Satan leering there. 

Only a little lingering fear of heaven 

Holds me from dirking you between the ribs ! 

Wo ! wo ! [Hides his face in his hands. 

page [aside] 
I would I were well out of this. 



156 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

lara [abstractedly] 
"Buch^thifl-divfflity-I — So-Joiil, so fair ! 

PAGE 

What would you have? I will say nothing, then. 

LARA 

Say everything, and end it ! Here is gold. 
You brought a billet to the Countess — well ? 
What said the billet ? 

PAGE 

Take away your hand, 

And, by St. Mary, I will say it all. 

There, now, I breathe. You will not harm me, Sir? 

Stand six yards off, or I will not a word. 

It seems the Countess promised Signor Juan 

A set of turquoise — 

lara [starting] 
Turquoise ? Ha ! that's well. 

PAGE 

Just so — wherewith my master was to pay 
Some gaming debts; but yesternight the cards 
Tumbled a golden mountain at his feet; 
And ere he sailed, this morning, Signor Juan 
Gave me a perfumed, amber-tinted note, 
For Countess Lara, which, with some adieus, 
Craved her remembrance morning, noon, and night; 
Her prayers while gone, her smiles when he returned; 
Then told his sudden fortune with the cards, 
And bade her keep the jewels. That, is all. 



THE SET OF TURQUOISE 157 

LARA 

All ? Is that all ? 'T has only cracked my heart ! 

A heart, I know of little, little worth — 

An ill-cut ruby, scarred and scratched before, 

But now quite broken ! I have no heart, then : 

Men should not have, when they are wronged like this. 

Out of my sight, thou demon of bad news ! 

Q-sip-thy wine complacently to-night, 

Lie with thy mistress in a pleasant sleep, 

For thou hast done thy master (that's the Devil!) 

This day a goodly service : thou hast sown 

The seeds of lightning that shall scathe and kill ! [Exit. 

page [looking after him] 

I did not think 'twould work on him like that. 
How pale he grew ! Alack ! I fear some ill 
Will come of this. I'll to the Countess quick, 
And warn her of his madness. Faith, he foamed 
I' the mouth like Guido whom they hung last week 
(God rest him !) in the jail at Mantua, 
Forkilling poor Battista. Crime for crime ! [Exit. 

Scene W. — Beatrice's chamber. A Venetian 
screen on the right. As the scene opens, Jacinta 
places lamps on a standish, and retires to the back of 
the stage. Beatrice sits on a fauteuil in the atti- 
tude of listening 

BEATRICE 

Hist! that's his step. Jacinta, place the lights 
Farther away irom me, and get thee gone. 

[Exit Jacinta. 
And Florian, child, keep you behind the screen, 



158 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Breathing no louder than a lily does; 
For if you stir or laugh 'twill ruin all. 

florian [behind the screen] 
Laugh ! I am faint with terror. 

BEATRICE 

Then be still. 

Move not for worlds until I touch the bell, 
Then do the thing I told you. Hush ! his step 
Sounds in the corridor, and I'm asleep ! 

[Lara enters with his dress in disorder. He 
approaches within a few yards of Beatrice, 
pauses, and looks at her. 

LARA 

Asleep ! — and Guilt can slumber ! Guilt can lie 
Down-lidded and soft-breathed, like Innocence ! 
Hath dreams as sweet as childhood's — who can 

tell? — 
And paradisal prophecies in sleep, 
Its foul heart keeping measure, as it were, 
To the silver music of a mandoline ! 
Were I an artist, and did wish to paint 
A devil to perfection, I'd not limn 
A horned monster, with a leprous skin, 
Red-hot from Pandemonium — not I. 
But with my delicatest tints, I'd paint 
A Woman in the splendor of her youth, 
All garmented with loveliness and mystery ! 
She should be sleeping in a room like this, 
With Angelos and Titians on the walls, 
The grand old masters staring grandly down, 
Draped round with folds of damask; in the alcoves, 



THE SET OF TURQUOISE 159 

Statues of Bacchus and Endymion, 
And Venus 's blind love-child: a globed lamp 
Gilding the heavy darkness, while the odors 
Of myriad hyacinths should seem to break 
4^oi^her4vory -bosom as. she_slept ; 
And by her side, (as I by Beatrice,) 
Her injured lord should stand and look at her ! 

[Pauses. 
How fair she is ! Her beauty glides between 
Me and my purpose, like a pleading angel. 
Beauty-=~alack! 'tiFifet-w4?k4i-^*^€4fr-u«»ai^ 
'Tis that we live for, die for, and are damned. 
A pretty ankle and a laughing lip — 
They cost us Eden when the world was new, 
They cheat us out of heaven every day ! 
To-night they win another Soul for you, 
Master of Darkness ! . . . [Beatrice sighs. 

Her dream's broke, like a bubble, in a sigh. 
She'll waken soon, and that — that must not be ! 
I could not kill her if she looked at me. 
I loved her, loved her, by the Saints, I did — 
1 trust she prayed before she fell asleep ! 

[Unsheathes a 



Beatrice [springing up] 

So, you are come — your dagger in your hand ? 
Your lips compressed and blanched, and your hair 
Tumbled wildly all about your eyes, 
Like a river-god's ? Oh ! love, you frighten me ! 
And you are trembling. Tell me what this means. 

LARA 

Oh ! nothing, nothing — I did think to write 
A note to Juan, to Signor Juan, my friend, 



160 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

(Your cousin and my honorable friend;) 
But finding neither ink nor paper here, 
Methought to scratch it with my dagger's point 
Upon your bosom, Madam ! That is all. 

BEATRICE 

You've lost your senses ! 

LARA 

Madam, no: I've found 'em! 

BEATRICE 

Then lose them quickly, and be. what you were. 

LARA 

I was a fool, a dupe — a happy dupe. 
You should have kept me in my ignorance; 
For wisdom makes us wretched, king and clown. 
Countess of Lara, you are false to me ! 

BEATRICE 

Now, by the Saints — 

LARA 

Now, by the Saints, you are ! 

BEATRICE 

Upon my honor — 

LARA 

On your honor ? fye ! 

Swear by the ocean's feathery froth, for that 

Is not so light a substance. 

BEATRICE 

Hear me, love ! 



THE SET OF TURQUOISE 161 

LARA 
S^i e t o that m arble Io ! — I d i n ni c k i 
Tcrtbe-^ear-t- with l yi n g. 

BEATRICE 

You've the earache, Sir, 
Got with too much believing. 

LARA 

Beatrice, 

I came to kill you. 

BEATRICE 

Kiss me, Count, you mean ! 

lara [approaching her] 
If killing you be kissing you, why yes. 

BEATRICE 

Ho ! come not near me with such threatening looks, 
0r I'll call Florian and Jacinta, Sir, 
And rouse the villa : 'twere a pretty play 
To act before our servants ! 

LARA 

Call your maids ! 

I'll kill them, too, and claim from Royalty 
A golden medal and a new escutcheon, 
Fer-slaying .three she-dragons — - but you first ! 

BEATRICE 

Stand back there, if you love me, or have loved ! 

[As Lara advances, Beatrice retreats to the 
table and rings a small hand-bell. Florian, in 
the dress of a page, enters from behind the 
screen, and steps between them. 



1 62 ALDRICH'S POEMS 



FLORIAN 

What would my master, Sighor Juan, say — 

lara [starting back] 

The Page ? now, curse him ! — What ? no ! Florian ? 

Hold ! 'twas at twilight, in the villa-garden, 

At dusk, too, on the road to Mantua; 

But here the light falls on you, man or maid ! 

Stop now; my brain's bewildered. Stan4-yo«~4iiere, 

And let me touch you with incredulous hands ! 

Wait till I come, r "-™' T ™ r " v k \\Y* q>ftr>cH 

If this be Juan's page, why, where is Florian ? 

If this be Florian, where's — by all the Saints, 

I have been tricked ! 

florian [laughing] 

By two Saints, with your leave ! 

LARA 

The happiest fool in Italy, for my age ! 
And all the damning tales you fed me with, 
Y on Spri te ^ f Tw iligh t, Tmp ^ f the «->H M^^ n -I — 

florian [bowing] 

Were arrant lies as ever woman told; 

And though not mine, I claim the price for them — 

This cap stuffed full of ducats twice a year! 

LARA 

A trap ! a trap that only caught a fool ! 

So thin a plot, I might have seen through it. 

I've lost my reason ! 

FLORIAN 

And your ducats ! 



THE SET OF TURQUOISE 163 

BEATRICE 

And 

A certain set of turquoise at Malan's ! 



ling Beatrice in his arms} 

I care not, love, so that I have not lost 
The love I held so jealously. And you — 
You do forgive me ? Say it with your eyes. 
Right sweetly said ! Now, mark me, Beatrice: 
If ever man or woman, ghoul or fairy, 
Breathes aught against your chastity — although 
The very angels from the clouds drop down 
To sign the charge of perfidy — I swear, 
Upon my honor — 

BEATRICE 

Nay, be careful there ! 

Swear by the ocean's feathery froth — 

LARA 

I swear, 

By heaven and all the Seraphim — 

Beatrice [placing her hand on his mouth] 
I pray you ! 

LARA 

I swear — if ever I catch Florian 

In pointed doublet and silk hose again, 

I'll— / 

BEATRICE 

What? 

LARA 

Make love to her, by all that's true ! 



164 ALDRICH'S POEMS 



BEATRICE 



O wisdom, wisdom ! just two hours too late ! 
You should have thought of that before, my love. 

LARA 

It's not too late ! 

BEATRICE [to FLORIAN] 

To bed, you dangerous page ! 

The Count shall pay the ducats. [Exit Florian. 

LARA 

And to-morrow 

I'll clasp a manacle of blue and gold 

On those white wrists. Now, Beatrice, come here, 

And let me kiss both eyes for you ! 



SONNETS 

Those forms we fancy shadows, those strange 
lights 
That flash on dank morasses, the quick wind 
That smites us by the roadside — are the Night's 
Innumerable children. Unconfined 
By shroud or coffin, disembodied souls, 
Uneasy spirits, steal into the air 
From festering graveyards when the curfew tolls 
At the day's death. Pestilence and despair 
Fly with the sightless bats at set of sun. . 
And wheresoever murders have been done, 
In stately palaces or lonesome woods, 
Where'er a soul has sold itself and lost 
Its high inheritance, there, hovering, broods 
Some sad, invisible, accursed Ghost ! 

Now, if the muses held me not in scorn, 
I'd shape a poem, perfect, fair and round 
As that thin band of gold wherewith I bound 
Your slender finger our betrothal morn; 
And in the circuit of this faultless rhyme 
I'd place the dear initials of your name — 
Three koh-i-noors to glisten for all time ! 
So would I lift my finger, and make fame 
Couch, like that well-bred mastiff at your feet 
Lapping your hand with dangerous tenderness. 
And such a magic should this song possess, 
165 



1 66 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Maidens would wear it, like a musk-pouch, sweet, 
Upon their pinkish bosoms, night and day, 
To keep foul dreams and untrue loves away. 

Sick of myself and all that keeps the light 
Of heaven away from me, I love to seek 
This breezy hill, and on its highest peak 
Sit down and watch the coming of the night. 
'Tis ever a new miracle to me. 
Men look to God for some mysterious sign, 
For marriage feasts with water turned to wine, 
For Christ to walk upon the troubled sea; 
As if He did not to our sense unfold 
Meanings as miraculous as of old ! 
Come watch with me the shaft of fire that glows 
In yonder heaven : the fair, frail palaces, 
The blue and crimson archipelagoes, 
And great cloud-continents of sunset-seas. 

Land of Delight ! you did not hold us long : 
Three moons we spent with Hassan, but those three, 
Like flies in amber, lie in memory — 
Three languid moons, three moons of dream and song. 
When Hassan played, the musky winds of night 
Trembled, and turned to music with delight ! 
Lo ! it was melody's insanity : 
Now 'twas a honey-throated nightingale, 
And now a sigh, a soul in agony, 
A troubled dead-march with melodious wail, 
A fall of tears — then it came daintily, 
Like the perfumed air that smote the sail 
Of Cleopatra's golden barge, when she 
Sailed down to Tarsus to Mark Antony. 



SONNETS 167 

"I AM not with you, Stoddard, in your sighs 
Because the Hamadryads and the Fauns 
Have left the moonlight lonely in the lawns ! 
Let science kill them with her piercing eyes, 
Let death be Oberon's and Titania's doom, 
Poor moonlight nothings ! let the faery broods 
Quit our demesne." . . . But that was in my room 
In the hot city, not in these still woods 
Where I have slept and dreamed the whole day long. 
I did their pygmy majesties much wrong, 
And have been punished (such was their device) 
By them in mask; for see! this emerald spear 
Of grass hath pricked a ruby on my ear, 
And that fierce humble-bee hath stung me twice ! 



PAMPINEA AND OTHER POEMS 
(1861) 



PAMPINEA 

AN IDYL 

Lying by the summer sea 
I had a dream of Italy. 

Chalky cliffs and miles of sand, 
Mossy reefs and salty caves, 
Then the sparkling emerald waves, 
Faded; and I seemed to stand, 
Myself a languid Florentine, 
In the heart of that fair land. 
And in a garden cool and green, 
Boccaccio's own enchanted place, 
I met Pampinea face to face — 
A maid so lovely that to see 
Her smile is to know Italy ! 

Her hair was like a coronet 
Upon her Grecian forehead set, 
Where one gem glistened sunnily 
Like Venice, when first seen at sea ! 
I saw within her violet eyes 
The starlight of Italian skies, 
And on her brow and breast and hand 
The olive of her native land ! 

And knowing how in other times 
Her lips were ripe with Tuscan rhymes 
Of love and wine and dance, I spread 
171 



172 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

My mantle by an almond-tree, 
"And here, beneath the rose," I said, 
"I'll hear thy Tuscan melody!" 

I heard a tale that was not told 
In those ten dreamy days of old, 
When Heaven, for some divine offence, 
Smote Florence with the pestilence; 
And in that garden's odorous shade, 
The dames of the Decameron, 
With each a loyal lover, strayed, 
To laugh and sing, at sorest need, 
To lie in the lilies in the sun 
With glint of plume and golden brede ! 

And while she whispered in my ear, 
The pleasant Arno murmured near, 
The dewy, slim chameleons run 
Through twenty colors in the sun; 
The breezes broke the fountain's glass, 
And woke aeolian melodies, 
And shook from out the scented trees 
The bleached lemon-blossoms on the grass. 

The tale ? I have forgot the tale ! — 
A Lady all for love forlorn, 
A Rose-bud, and a Nightingale 
That bruised his bosom on the thorn; 
A pot of rubies buried deep, 
A glen, a corpse, a child asleep, 
A Monk, that was no monk at all, 
In the moonlight by a castle wall. 

Now while the sweet-eyed Tuscan wove 
The gilded thread of her romance — 



PAMPINEA 173 

Which I have lost by grievous chance — 

The one dear woman that I love, 

Beside me in our seaside nook, 

Closed a white finger in her book, 

Half vexed that she should read, and weep 

For Petrarch, to a man asleep ! 

And scorning me, so tame and cold, 

She rose, and wandered down the shore, 

Her wine-dark drapery, fold in fold, 

Imprisoned by an ivory hand; 

And on a ledge of oolite, half in sand, 

She stood, and looked at Appledore. 

And waking, I beheld her there 

Sea-dreaming in the moted air, 

A siren sweet and debonair, 

With wristlets woven of scarlet weeds, 

And oblong lucent amber beads 

Of sea kelp shining in her hair. 

And as I thought of dreams, and how 

The something in us never sleeps, 

But laughs, or sings, or moans, or weeps, 

She turned — and on her breast and brow 

I saw the tint that seemed not won 

From kisses of New England sun; 

I saw on brow and breast and hand 

The olive of a sunnier land ! 

She turned — and, lo ! within her eyes 

There lay the starlight of Italian skies ! 

Most dreams are dark, beyond the range 
Of reason ; oft we cannot tell 
If they are born of heaven or hell : 
But to my soul it seems not strange 



174 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

That, lying by the summer sea, 
With that dark woman watching me, 
I slept and dreamed of Italy ! 

PYTHAGORAS 

Above the petty passions of the crowd 
I stand in frozen marble like a god, 
Inviolate, and ancient as the moon. 
The thing I am, and not the thing Man is, 
Fills these deep sockets. Let him moan and die; 
For he is dust that shall be laid again : 
I know my own creation was divine. 
Strewn on the breezy continents I see 
The veined shells and burnished scales which once 
Enwrapped my being — husks that had their use ; 
I brood on all the shapes I must attain 
Before I reach the Perfect, which is God, 
And dream my dream, and let the rabble go: 
For I am of the mountains and the sea, 
The deserts, and the caverns in the earth, 
The catacombs and fragments of old worlds. 

I was a spirit on the mountain tops, 
A perfume in the valleys, a simoom 
On arid deserts, a nomadic wind 
Roaming the universe, a tireless Voice. 
I was ere Romulus and Remus were; 
I was ere Nineveh and Babylon; 
I was, and am, and evermore shall be, 
Progressing, never reaching to the end. 

A hundred years I trembled in the grass, 
The delicate trefoil that muffled warm 
A slope on Ida; for a hundred years 
Moved in the purple gyre of those dark flowers 



PYTHAGORAS 1 75 

That Grecian women strew upon the dead. 

Under the earth, in fragrant glooms, I dwelt; 

Then in the veins and sinews of a pine 

On a lone isle, where, from the Cyclades, 

A mighty wind, like a leviathan, 

Ploughed through the brine, and from those solitudes 

Sent Silence, frightened. To and fro I swayed, 

Drawing the sunshine from the stooping clouds. 

Suns came and went, and many a mystic moon, 

Orbing and waning, and fierce meteors, 

Leaving their lurid ghosts to haunt the night. 

I heard loud voices by the sounding shore, 

The stormy sea-gods, and from fluted conchs 

Wild music, and strange shadows floated by, 

Some moaning and some singing. So the years 

Clustered about me, till the hand of God 

Let down the lightning from a sultry sky, 

Splintered the pine and split the iron rock; 

And from my odorous prison-house a bird, 

I in its bosom, darted: so we fled, 

Turning the brittle edge of one high wave, 

Island and tree and sea-gods left behind ! 

Free as the air, from zone to zone I flew, 
Far from the tumult to the quiet gates 
Of daybreak; and beneath me I beheld 
Vineyards, and rivers that like silver threads 
Ran through the green and gold of pasture-lands, 
And here and there a hamlet, a white rose, 
And here and there a city, whose slim spires 
And palace roofs and swollen domes uprose 
Like scintillant stalagmites in the sun; 
I saw huge navies battling with a storm 
By ragged reefs along the desolate coasts, 
And lazy merchantmen, that crawled, like flies, 



176 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Over the blue enamel of the sea 
To India or the icy Labradors. 

A century was as a single day. 
What is a day to an immortal soul? 
A breath, no more. And yet I hold one hour 
Beyond all price — that hour when from the sky 
I circled near and nearer to the earth, 
Nearer and nearer, till I brushed my wings 
Against the pointed chestnuts, where a stream 
That foamed and chattered over pebbly shoals, 
Fled through the briony, and with a shout 
Leaped headlong down a precipice; and there, 
Gathering wild flowers in the cool ravine, 
Wandered a woman more divinely shaped 
Than any of the creatures of the air, 
Or river-goddesses, or restless shades 
Of noble matrons marvellous in their time 
For beauty and great suffering; and I sung, 
I charmed her thought, I gave her dreams, and then 
Down from the sunny atmosphere I stole 
And nestled in her bosom. There I slept 
From moon to moon, while in her eyes a thought 
Grew sweet and sweeter, deepening like the dawn — 
A mystical forewarning ! When the stream, 
Breaking through leafless brambles and dead leaves, 
Piped shriller treble, and from chestnut boughs 
The fruit dropped noiseless through the autumn night, 
I gave a quick, low cry, as infants do : 
We weep when we are born, not when we die ! 
So was it destined; and thus came I here, 
To suffer bravely as becomes my state, 
One step, one grade, one cycle nearer God. 

And knowing these things, can I stoop to fret, 
And lie, and haggle in the market place, 



THE TRAGEDY 177 

Give dross for dross, or everything for naught? 

No ! let me sit above the crowd, and sing, 

Waiting with hope for that miraculous change 

Which seems like sleep ; and though I waiting starve, 

I cannot kiss the idols that are set 

By every gate, in every street and park; 

I cannot fawn, I cannot soil my soul: 

For I am of the mountains and the sea, 

The deserts and the caverns in the earth, 

The catacombs and fragments of old worlds. 

THE TRAGEDY 

LA DAME AUX CAMELLIAS 

The "Dame with the Camellias" — 

I think that was the play; 
The house was packed from pit to dome 

With the gallant and the gay, 
Who had come to see the Tragedy, 

And while the hours away ! 

There was the faint Exquisite, 
With gloves and glass sublime; 

There was the grave Historian, 
And there the man of Rhyme, 

And the surly Critic, front to front, 
To see the play of Crime. 

And there was heavy Ignorance, 

And Vice in Honiton lace; 
Sir Crcesus and Sir Pandarus — 

And the music played apace. 
But of all that crowd I only saw 

A' single, single face I 



178 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

'Twas that of a girl whom I had known 

In the summers long ago, 
When her breath was like the new-mown hay, 

Or the sweetest flowers that grow — 
When her heart was light, and her soul was white 

As the winter's driven snow. 

'Twas in our own New England 

She breathed the morning air; 
'Twas the sunshine of New England 

That blended with her hair; 
And modesty and purity 

Walked with her everywhere ! 

All day like a ray of light she played 

About old Harvey's mill; 
And her grandsire held her on his knee 

In the evenings long and still, 
And told her tales of Lexington, 

And the trench at Bunker's Hill — 

And of the painted Wamponsags, 

The Indians who of yore 
Builded their wigwams out of bark 

In the woods of Sagamore; 
And how the godly Puritans 

Burnt witches by the score ! 

Or, touching on his sailor life, 

He told how, years ago, 
In the dark of a cruel winter night, 

In the rain and sleet and snow, 
The good bark Martha Jane went down 

On the rocks off Holmes' Ho' ! 



THE TRAGEDY 179 

The years flew by, and the maiden grew 

Like a harebell in the glade; 
The chestnut shadows crept in her eyes — 

Sweet eyes that were not afraid 
To look at heaven at morn or even, 

Or any time she prayed ! 

She walked with him to the village church, 

And his eyes would fill with pride 
To see her walk with the man she loved — 

To see them side by side ! 
Sweet Heaven 1 she were an angel now 

If she had only died. 

If she had only died ! Alas ! 

How keen must be the woe 
That makes it better one should lie 

Where the sunshine cannot go, 
Than to live in this sunny world of ours, 

Where the happy blossoms blow ! 

Would she had wed some country clown 

Before the luckless day 
When her cousin came to that lowly home — 

Her cousin Richard May, 
With his city airs and handsome eyes, 

To lead her soul astray ! 

One night they left the cottage — 

One night in the mist and rain; 
And the old man never saw his child 

Nor Richard May again; 
Never saw his pet in the clover patch, 

In the meadow, nor the lane. 



180 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Ah ! never was a heart so torn 

Since this wild world began, 
As day by day he looked for her, 

This pitiful old man. 
"Where's my pretty maid?" he said, 

This pitiful old man. 

Many a dreary winter came, 

And he had passed away; 
And we never heard of her who fled 

In the night with Richard May; 
Never knew if she were alive or dead 

Till I met her at the play! 

And there she sat with her great brown eyes, 

They wore a troubled look; 
And I read the history of her life 

As it were an open book; 
And saw her Soul, like a slimy thing 

In the bottom of a brook. 

There she sat in her rustling silk, 

With diamonds on her wrist, 
And on her brow a slender thread 

Of pearl and amethyst. 
"A cheat, 'a gilded grief!" I said, 

And my eyes were filled with mist. 

I could not see the players play, 

I heard the music moan; 
It moaned like a dismal autumn wind, 

That dies in the woods alone; 
And when it stopped I heard it still, 

The mournful monotone ! 



TWO LEAVES FROM A PLAY 181 

What if the Count were true or false? 

I did not care, not I; 
What if Camille for Armand died? 

I did not see her die. 
There sat a woman opposite 

Who held me with her eye ! 

The great green curtain fell on all, 

On laugh, and wine, and woe, 
Just as death some day will fall 

'Twixt us and life, I know ! 
The play was done, the bitter play, 

And the people turned to go. 

And did they see the Tragedy? 

They saw the painted scene; 
They saw Armand, the jealous fool, 

And the sick Parisian quean; 
But they did not see the Tragedy — 

The one I saw, I mean ! 

They did not see that cold-cut face, 

Those braids of golden hair; 
Or, seeing her jewels, only said, 

"The lady's rich and fair." 
But I tell you, 'twas the Play of Life, 

And that woman played Despair ! 

TWO LEAVES FROM A PLAY 

/. Hortense 

O, but she loved him, and the death she died 
Wrote Love across her bosom. Fainter hearts 
Had wept and pined themselves into the grave. 



182 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

She was not fashioned of such gossamer; 
For one bleak midnight, robed as for a fete, 
With all her splendor, and her jewels on, 
She sucked quick poison from a finger-ring, 
And so they found her, in the morning — dead. 
The pearls lay on her bosom like pale flowers 
When no wind stirs them; with one waxen hand 
She held his crumpled letter: in the room 
Sat Silence and white Slumber ! So she died. 

II. After the Masquerade 

We've danced the night out, Madaline. 

Pleasure is sick, and Music's self hath grown 

As languid as a weary ballet-girl ! 

There's not a dozen maskers in the hall. 

How like the pictures on a wizard's glass 

The party-colored pageant has swept by — 

Fools with their bells, and Monarchs with their crowns, 

Athenians, and bearded Mamelukes, 

Death-heads and Satyrs, and weird shadows born 

In the brains of crazy poets. Yet so real — 

Such bitter mimicry ! O, Madaline, 

This is the very world in miniature : 

We each wear dresses that become us not, 

We each are maskers in a Carnival. 

The spangles and the tinsel of our lives, 

The soul in song, the jests above our wine, 

Are pleasant lies that tell not what we are. 

The Droll's at best a melancholy man; 

His wit is only honey in a skull; 

And though he glitter like a prism i' the light 

His colors cannot hide the skeleton ! 

The Scholar is a cynic, and the Priest 



KATHIE MORRIS 1 83 

A solemn epicurean in a cowl; 

Philanthropy is politic : the Slave 

Wears not such fetters as the Emperor. 

And so, my love, Life plays at harlequin, 

Smothers itself in ermine, or puts on 

The icy front of virtue for effect. 

A smile's a mask to hide a broken heart: 

Fair words "are masks, and all this blazoned world 

Against the frozen opal in your ring, 

There's no such mask as woman's tears may be ! 

KATHIE MORRIS 

AN IDYL 



Ah ! fine it was that April time, when gentle winds 
were blowing, 
To hunt for pale arbutus blooms that hide beneath 
the leaves, 
To hear the slanting rain come down, and see the 
clover growing, 
And watch the airy swallows as they darted round 
the eaves ! 



You wonder why I dream to-night of clover that was 
growing 
So many years ago, my wife, when we were in our 
prime ; 
For, hark ! the wind is in the flue, and Johnny says 
'tis snowing, 
And through the storm the clanging bells ring in 
the Christmas time. 



1 84 ALDRICH'S POEMS 



I cannot tell, but something sweet about my heart is 
clinging. 
A vision and a memory — 'tis little that I mind 
The weary winter weather, for I hear the robins 
singing, 
And the petals of the apple blooms are ruffled in 
the wind! 



It was a sunny morn in May, and in the fragrant 
meadow 
I lay, and dreamed of one fair face, as fair and fresh 
as spring: 
Would Kathie Morris love me ? then in sunshine and 
in shadow 
I built up lofty castles on a golden wedding ring ! 



O, sweet it was to dream of her, the soldier's only 
daughter, 
The pretty pious Puritan, that flirted so with Will ; 
The music of her winsome mouth was like the laugh- 
ing water 
That broke in silvery syllables by Farmer Philip's 
mill. 

6 

And Will had gone away to sea ; he did not leave her 
grieving; 
Her bonny heart was not for him, so reckless and 
so vain; 



KATHIE MORRIS 1 85 

And Will turned out a buccaneer, and hanged he was 
for thieving 
And scuttling helpless ships that sailed across the 
Spanish Main. 

7 

And I had come to grief for her, the scornful village 
beauty, 
For, oh ! she had a witty tongue could cut you like 
a knife; 
She scorned me with her haughty eyes, and I, in 
bounden duty, 
Did love her — loved her more for that, and wearied 
of my life ! 

8 

And yet 'twas sweet to dream of her, to think her wavy 
tresses 
Might rest some happy, happy day, like sunshine, 
on my cheek; 
The idle winds that fanned my brow I dreamed were 
her caresses, 
And in the robin's twitterings I heard my sweet- 
heart speak. 

9 

And as I lay and thought of her, her fairy face adorn- 
ing 
With lover's fancies, treasuring the slightest word 
she'd said, 
'Twas Kathie broke upon me like a blushing summer 
morning, 
And a half-blown rosy clover reddened underneath 
her tread ! 



l86 ALDRICH'S POEMS 



10 

Then I looked up at Kathie, and her eyes were full of 
laughter : 
"O, Kathie, Kathie Morris, I am lying at your 
feet; 
Bend above me, say you love me, that you'll love me 
ever after, 
Or let me lie and die here, in the fragrant meadow- 
sweet ! " 

ii 

And then I turned my face away, and trembled at my 
daring, 
For wildly, wildly had I spoke, with flashing cheek 
and eye; 
And there was silence; I looked up, all pallid and 
despairing, 
For fear she'd take me at my word, and leave me 
there to die. 

12 

The silken fringes of her eyes upon her cheeks were 
drooping, 
Her merciless white fingers tore a blushing bud 
apart ; 
Then, quick as lightning, Kathie came, and kneeling 
half and stooping, 
She hid her bonny, bonny face against my beating 
heart. 

13 

O, nestle, nestle, nestle there ! the heart would give 
thee greeting; 
Lie thou there, all trustfully, in trouble and in pain ; 



KATHIE MORRIS 187 

This breast shall shield thee from the storm, and bear 
its bitter beating, 
These arms shall hold thee tenderly in sunshine 
and in rain ! 

14 

Old sexton ! set your chimes in tune, and let there 
be no snarling, 
Ring out a joyous wedding hymn to all the listening 
air; 
And, girls, strew roses as she comes, the scornful, 
brown-eyed darling — 
A princess, by the wavy gold and glistening of her 
hair! 

Hark ! hear the bells. The Christmas bells ? O, no ; 
who set them ringing? 
I think I hear our bridal bells and I with joy am 
blind ; 
I smell the clover in the fields, I hear the robins sing- 
ing. 
And the petals of the apple blooms are ruffled in 
the wind ! 

16 

Ah ! Kathie, you've been true to me in fair and 
cloudy weather; 
Our Father has been good to us when we've been 
sorely tried : 
I pray to God, when we must die, that we may die 
together, 
And slumber softly underneath the clover, side by 
side. 



1 88 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

HASHEESH 

i 

Stricken with thought, I staggered through the night 

The heavens leaned down to me with splendid fires ; 

The seven Pleiads, changed to magic lyres, 

Made music as I went ; and to my sight 

A Palace shaped itself against the skies: 

Great sapphire-studded portals suddenly 

Opened upon vast Gothic galleries 

Of gold and ebony, and I could see, 

Through half-drawn curtains that let in the day, 

Dim tropic gardens stretching far away ! 

2 

Ah ! what a wonder seized upon my soul, 
When from that structure of the upper airs 
I saw unfold a flight of crystal stairs 
For my ascending. . . . Then I heard the roll 
Of unseen oceans clashing at the Pole. . . . 
A terror fell upon me ... a vague sense 
Of near calamity. O, lead me hence ! 
I shrieked, and lo ! from out a darkling hole 
That opened at my feet, crawled after me, 
Up the broad staircase, creatures of huge size, 
Fanged, warty monsters, with their lips and eyes 
Hung with slim leeches sucking hungrily. — 
Away, vile drug ! I will avoid thy spell, 
Honey of Paradise, black dew of Hell ! 

HESPERIDES 

If thy soul, Herrick, dwelt with me, 
This is what my songs would be: 



THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS 189 

Hints of our sea-breezes, blent 
With odors from the Orient; 
Indian vessels deep with spice; 
Star-showers from the Norland ice; 
Wine-red jewels that seem to hold 
Fire, but only burn with cold; 
Antique goblets, strangely wrought, 
Filled with wine of happy thought; 
Bridal measures, dim regrets, 
Laburnum buds and violets; 
Hopeful as the break of day; 
Clear as crystal; fresh as May; 
Musical as brooks that run 
O'er yellow shallows in the sun; 
Soft as the glossy fringe that shades 
The eyelids of thy fragrant maids; 
Brief as thy lyrics, Herrick, are> 
And polished as the bosom of a star ! 

THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS 

Kind was my friend who, in the Eastern land, 
Remembered with me such a gracious hand, 
And sent this Moorish Crescent which has been 
Worn on the tawny bosom of a queen. 

No more it sinks and rises in unrest 
To the soft music of her heathen breast; 
No barbarous chief shall bow before it more, 
No turban'd slave shall envy and adore ! 

I place beside this relic of the Sun 

A Cross of Cedar brought from Lebanon, 

Once borne, perchance, by some pale monk who trod 

The desert to Jerusalem — and his God I 



190 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Here do they lie, two symbols of two creeds, 
Each meaning something to our human needs, 
Both stained with blood, and sacred made by faith, 
By tears, and prayers, and martyrdom, and death. 

That for the Moslem is, but this for me ! 
The waning Crescent lacks divinity: 
It gives me dreams of battles, and the woes 
Of women shut in hushed seraglios. 

But when this Cross of simple wood I see, 
The Star of Bethlehem shines again for me, 
And glorious visions break upon my gloom — 
The patient Christ, and Mary at the Tomb ! 

SONG 



The chestnuts shine through the cloven rind, 
And the woodland leaves are red, my dear; 

The scarlet fuchsias burn in the wind — 
Funeral plumes for the Year ! 



The Year which has brought me so much woe, 
That if it were not for you, my dear, 

I should wish the fuchsias' fire might glow 
For me as well as the Year ! 



PISCATAQUA RIVER 

i860 

Thou singest by the gleaming isles, 
By woods and fields of corn, 



PISCATAQUA RIVER 191 

Thou singest, and the heaven smiles 
Upon my birthday morn. 

But I within a city, I, 

So full of vague unrest, 
Would almost give my life to lie 

An hour upon thy breast. 

To let the wherry listless go, 

And, wrapped in dreamy joy, 
Dip, and surge idly to and fro, 

Like the red harbor-buoy ! 

To sit in happy indolence, 

To rest upon the oars, 
And catch the heavy earthy scents 

That blow from summer shores: 

To see the rounded sun go down, 

And with its parting fires 
Light up the windows of the town 

And burn the tapering spires ! 

And then to hear the muffled tolls 

From steeples slim and white, 
And watch, among the Isles of Shoals, 

The Beacon's orange light. 

O, River ! flowing to the main 
Through woods and fields of corn, 

Hear thou my longing and my pain 
This sunny birthday morn ! 

And take this song which sorrow shapes 

To music like thine own, 
And sing it to the cliffs and capes 

And crags where I am known ! 



192 ALDRICH'S POEMS 



THE LUNCH 

A Gothic window, where a damask curtain 

Made the blank daylight shadowy and uncertain: 

A slab like agate on four eagle-talons 

Held trimly up and neatly taught to balance: 

A porcelain dish, o'er which in many a cluster 

Plump grapes hung down, dead-ripe and without 

lustre : 
A melon cut in thin delicious slices : 
A cake that seemed mosaic-work in spices : 
Two China cups with golden tulips sunny, 
And rich inside with chocolate like honey; 
And she and I the banquet-scene completing 
With dreamy words — and very dainty eating ! 

HAUNTED 

A noisome mildewed vine 

Crawls to the rotting eaves; 

The gate has dropped from the rusty hinge 

And the walks are strewn with leaves. 

Close by the shattered fence 

The red-clay road runs by 

To a haunted wood, where the hemlocks groan 

And the willows sob and sigh. 

Among the dank lush flowers 

The spiteful firefly glows, 

And a woman steals by the stagnant pond 

Wrapped in her burial clothes. 

There's a dark blue scar on her throat, 
And ever she makes a moan; 



SONG 193 

And the humid lizards shine in the grass, 
And the lichens weep on the stone, 

And the Moon shrinks in a cloud, 
And the traveller shakes with fear, 
And an Owl on the skirts of the wood 
Hoots, and says, Do you hear? 

Go not there at night, 

For a spell hangs over all — 

The palsied elms, and the dismal road. 

And the broken garden wall. 

O, go not there at night, 
For a curse is on the place; 
Go not there, for fear you meet 
The Murdered face to face ! 

SONG 



Merry is the robin 

That pipes away his care, 
And merry is the mackerel 

That leaps a yard in air ! 
And merry is the buttercup 

Beneath the April sky, 
And merry as the springtime, 

Love, are you and I ! 



Now the robin's chilly, 

And all his songs are done; 

No more the spotted mackerel 
Leaps silvery in the sun. 



194 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

O, mournful is the scarlet leaf, 
And mournful is the sky — 

But merry as the springtime, 
Love, are you and I ! 

MIRIAM'S WOE 

Miriam at the planter's door, 
Her child upon her knee, 

Sat as the twilight gathered round 
The vale of Nacoochee. 

Sat with an anguish in her eyes, 
And forehead bended low — 

Sat like a statue carved in stone, 
All pallid with her woe ! 

By dark bayou and cypress-swamp, 

By rice-field and lagoon, 
Her soul went wandering to the land 

That scorches in the noon ! 

And on the lover of her youth 
She turned her patient eyes, 

And saw him sad, and faint, and sick 
Beneath those alien skies. 

She saw him pick the cotton blooms 
And cut the sugar-cane — 

A ring of iron on his wrist, 
And round his heart a chain ! 

She saw him, when his work was done, 
Sit down in some lone place, 

To dream of her, and weep for her, 
His hands across his face ! 



THE ROBIN 

She heard the dear old violin 

That he was wont to play 
At twilight, in their courting time, 

When life was sweet as May ! 

Then suddenly a catbird called 
From out a neighboring tree, 

And Miriam's soul came back again 
To the vale of Nacoochee. 

And closer, closer to her heart 

She held the little child, 
Who stretched its fragile hand to feel 

Her bosom's warmth, and smiled. 

But she — she did not own a touch 

Of that fond little hand — 
Great God ! that such a thing should be 

Within a Christian land ! 



THE ROBIN 

From out the blossomed cherry-tops 
Sing, blithesome Robin, chant and sing; 
With chirp, and trill, and magic-stops 
Win thou the listening ear of Spring ! 

For while thou lingerest in delight, 
An idle poet, with thy rhyme, 
The summer hours will take their flight 
And leave thee in a barren clime. 

Not all the autumn's brittle gold, 

Nor sun, nor moon, nor star shall bring 



195 



196 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

The jocund spirit which of old 
Made it an easy joy to sing ! 

So said a poet — having lost 
The precious time when he was young 
Now wandering by the wintry coast 
With empty heart and silent tongue. 



IN THE OLD CHURCH-TOWER 

1859 

1 

In the old church-tower 

Hangs the bell; 
And above it on the vane, 
In the sunshine and the rain, 
Cut in gold, Saint Peter stands, 
With the keys in his two hands, 

And all is well ! 



In the old church-tower 

Hangs the bell; 
You can hear its great heart beat, 
Ah ! so loud, and wild, and sweet, 
As the parson says a prayer 
Over wedded lovers there, 

While all is well ! 

3 
In the old church-tower 

Hangs the bell, 
Deep and solemn. Hark ! again, 



LAMIA 197 

Ah ! what passion, and what pain ! 
With her hands upon her breast, 
Some poor Soul has gone to rest 
Where all is well ! 

4 
In the old church-tower 

Hangs the bell — 
An old friend that seems to know 
All our joy and all our woe: 
It is glad when we are wed, 
It is sad when we are dead, 

And all is well ! 

SONG 

Blow from the temples of the Sun, 

Thou heavy-scented wind; 
O, blow across the spicy isles 

And strike the roses blind ! 

And kiss the eyes of my true love, 

And tell me if she be 
Not lovelier than the Khaleef's wife 

Beyond the Indian sea ! 

LAMIA 

Go on your way, and let me pass. 

You stop a wild despair. 
I would that I were turned to brass 

Like that grim dragon there, 

Which, couchant by the groined gate, 
In weather foul or fair, 



198 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Looks down serenely desolate, 
And nothing does but stare ! 

What care I for the burgeoned year, 
The sad leaf or the gay? 

Let Launcelot and Guinevere 
Their falcons fly this day. 

'Twill be as royal sport, pardie, 

As falconers have tried 
At Astolat — but let me be ! 

I would that I had died. 

I met a woman in the glade : 
Her hair was soft and brown, 

And long bent silken lashes weighed 
Her ivory eyelids down. 

I kissed her hand, I called her blest, 
I held her true and fair — 

She turned to shadow on my breast, 
And melted in the air ! 

And, lo ! about me, fold on fold, 
A golden serpent hung — 

An eye of jet, a skin of gold, 
A garnet for a tongue ! 

O, let the petted falcons fly 
Right merry in the sun; 

But let me be ! for I shall die 
Before the year is done. 



OUR COLORS AT FORT SUMTER 



THE MAN AND THE HOUR 



199 



As some rare jewel, sealed within a rock, 
Would ne'er have glittered in the sunny air, 

Had not the lightning or an earthquake's shock 
Crumbled the ledge, and laid its splendor bare 

So do fine souls lie darkling in the earth 

Until some mighty tumult heaves them forth. 

Men of this land and lovers of these States ! 

What master-spirit from the dark shall rise, 
And, with a will inviolate as fate's, 

God-like and prudent, merciful and wise, 
Do battle in God's name and set us right 
Ere on our glory ruin broods and night ! 

December, i860. 



OUR COLORS AT FORT SUMTER 



Here's to the Hero of Moultrie, 
The valiant and the true ! 

True to our Flag — by land and sea, 
Long may it wave for you ! 



May never traitor's touch pollute 
Those colors of the sky — 

We want them pure, to wrap about 
Our heroes when they die ! 

January, 1861. 



POEMS OF 1865 



PROLOGUE 

TO LILIAN 

God fashioned Man from out the common earth, 

But not from earth the Woman: so does she, 

Even when fallen, ever bear with her 

Some sign of Heaven, some mystic starry light. 

Most gentle is she in all gentle deeds, 

In all sweet offices of fireside-life; 

A touch to cool the fevered brow of pain, 

A voice to ease the heavy heart of care: 

Most holy is she, since child Jesus drew 

Life from the sacred circles of her breast. 

Nor this alone, for, grappling with her fate 

In ancient days, she buckled armor on, 

And graspt the sword and sprung the battle-bolt, 

And wore the Martyr's scarlet shroud of flame. 

Of fair heroic women not the least 

Was she of Bethulia, whose lithe hand 

Forgot its native tenderness, and smote 

The Assyrian despot on his conquered throne, 

Whereby she blest the land for evermore 

And won the love of Israel and the Lord. 

To this uncrowned queen of elder time 

Belong the art and passion of my song; 

And unto thee the song itself, since thou 

Hast taught me reverence for all womankind. 



JUDITH 

I. Judith in the Tower 

Now Holofernes with his barbarous hordes, 
The scum of twenty servile sovereignties, 
Crost the Euphrates, laying waste the land 
To Esdraelon, and, falling on the town 
Of Bethulia, stormed it night and day 
Incessant, till within the leaguered walls 
The boldest captains faltered; for at length 
The wells gave out, and then the barley failed, 
And Famine, like a murderer masked and cloaked, 
Stole in among the garrison. The air 
Was filled with lamentation, women's moans 
And cries of children: and at night there came 
A fever, parching as a fierce simoom. 
Yet Holofernes could not batter down 
The brazen gates, nor make a single breach 
With beam or catapult in those tough walls: 
And white with rage among the tents he strode, 
Among the squalid Tartar tents he strode 
And curst the gods that gave him not his will, 
And curst his captains, curst himself, and all; 
Then, seeing in what strait the city was, 
Withdrew his men hard by the fated town 
Amid the hills, and with a grim-set smile 
Waited, aloof, until the place should fall. 
All day the housetops lay in sweltering heat; 
All night the watch fires flared upon the towers; 
205 



206 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

And day and night with Israelitish spears 
The bastions bristled. 



In a tall square Tower, 
Full-fronting on the vile Assyrian camp, 
Sat Judith, pallid as the cloudy moon 
That hung half-faded in the dreary sky; 
And ever and anon she turned her eyes 
To where, between two vapor-haunted hills, 
The dreadful army like a caldron seethed. 
She heard, far off, the camels' gurgling groan, 
The clank of arms, the stir and buzz of camps; 
Beheld the camp-fires, flaming fiends of night 
That leapt, and with red hands clutched at the dark; 
And now and then, as some mailed warrior stalked 
Athwart the fires, she saw his armor gleam. 
Beneath her stretched the temples and the tombs, 
The city sickening of its own thick breath, 
And over all the sleepless Pleiades. 



A star-like face, with floating clouds of hair • 
Merari's daughter, dead Manasses' wife, 
Who (since the barley-harvest when he died), 
By holy charities, and prayers, and fasts, 
Walked with the angels in her widow's weeds, 
And kept her pure in honor of the dead. 
But dearer to her bosom, than the dead 
Was Israel, its Prophets and its God: 
And that dread midnight, in the Tower alone, 
Believing He would hear her from afar, 
She lifted up the voices of her soul 
Above the wrangling voices of the world: 



JUDITH 207 

"O are we not Thy children who of old 
Trod the Chaldean idols in the dust, 
And in Mesopotamia worshipped Thee? 

" Didst Thou not lead us unto Canaan 
For love of us, because we spurned the gods ? 
Didst Thou not bless us that we worshipped Thee? 

"And when a famine covered all the land, 
And drove us unto Egypt, where the King 
Did persecute Thy chosen to the death, — 

"Didst Thou not smite the swart Egyptians then, 
And guide us through the bowels of the deep 
That swallowed up their horsemen and their King ? 

"For saw we not, as in a wondrous dream, 
The up-tost javelins, the plunging steeds, 
The chariots sinking in the wild Red Sea? 

"O Lord, Thou hast been with us in our woe, 
And from Thy bosom Thou hast cast us forth, 
And to Thy bosom taken us again: 

"For we have built our temples in the hills 
By Sinai, and on Jordan's flowery banks, 
And in Jerusalem we worship Thee. 

"O Lord, look down and help us. Stretch Thy 
hand 
And free Thy people. Make us pure in faith, 
And draw us nearer, nearer unto Thee." 

As when a harp-string trembles at a touch, 
And music runs through all its quivering length, 
And does not die, but seems to float away, 



208 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

A silvery mist uprising from the string : 
So Judith's prayer rose tremulous in the night, 
And floated upward unto other spheres; 
And Judith loosed the hair about her brows, 
And bent her head, and wept for Israel. 

Now while she wept, bowed like a lotus-flower 
That watches its own shadow in the Nile, 
A stillness seemed to fall upon the land, 
As if from out the calyx of a cloud, 
That blossomed suddenly 'twixt the earth and moon, 
It fell, — and presently there came a sound 
Of many pinions rustling in the dark, 
And voices mingling, far and near, and strange 
As sea-sounds on some melancholy coast 
When first the equinox unchains the Storm. 
Whereat she started, and with one quick hand 
Brushed back the plenteous tresses from a cheek 
That whitened like a lily, and so stood, 
Nor breathed, nor moved, but listened with her soul; 
And at her side, invisible, there leaned 
An Angel mantled in his folded wings, — 
To her invisible, but other eyes 
Beheld the saintly countenance; for, lo ! 
Great clouds of spirits swoopt about the Tower 
And drifted in the eddies of the wind. 
The Angel stoopt, and from his radiant brow, 
And from the gleaming amaranth in his hair, 
A splendor fell on Judith, and she grew, 
From her black tresses to her arched feet, 
Fairer than morning in Arabia. 
Then silently the Presence spread his vans, 
And rose, — a luminous shadow in the air, — 
And through the zodiac, a white star, shot. 



JUDITH 209 

As one that wakens from a trance, she turned, 
And heard the twilight twitterings of birds, 
The wind i' the turret, and from far below 
Camp-sounds of pawing hoof and clinking steel; 
And in the East she saw the early dawn 
Breaking the Night's enchantment, — saw the Moon, 
Like some wan sorceress, vanish in mid-heaven, 
Leaving a moth-like glimmer where she died. 



Now from the dewy lowlands floated up 
Loose folds of mist that caught at every crag 
And melted in the sunlight; then the Morn 
Stood full and perfect on the jasper hills. 
And Judith rose, and down the spiral stairs 
Descended to the garden of the Tower, 
Where, at the gate, lounged Achior, lately fled 
From Holof ernes; as she past she spoke: 
"The Lord be with thee, Achior, all thy days." 
And Achior saw the Spirit of the Lord 
Had been with her, and, in a single night, 
Worked such a miracle of form and face 
As left her lovelier than all womankind 
Who was before the fairest in Judaea. 
But she, unconscious of God's miracle, 
Moved swiftly on among a frozen group 
Of statues that with empty, slim-necked urns 
Taunted the thirsty Seneschal, until 
She came to where, beneath the spreading palms, 
Sat Chabris with Ozias and his friend 
Charmis, governors of the leaguered town. 
They saw a glory shining on her face 
Like daybreak, and they marvelled as she stood 
Bending before them with humility. 



210 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

And wrinkled Charmis murmured through his beard : 
"This woman walketh in the smile of God." 

"So walk we all," spoke Judith. "Evermore 
His light envelops us, and only those 
Who turn aside their faces droop and die 
In utter midnight. If we faint we die. 
O, is it true, Ozias, thou hast sworn 
To yield our people to their enemies 
After five days, unless the Lord shall stoop 
From heaven to help us?" 

And Ozias said: 
"Our young men die upon the battlements; 
Our wives and children by the empty tanks 
Lie down and perish." 

"If we faint we die. 
The weak heart builds its palace on the sand, 
The flood-tide eats the palace of a fool: 
But whoso trusts in God, as Jacob did, 
Though suffering greatly even to the end, 
Dwells in a citadel upon a rock 
That wind nor wave nor fire shall topple down." 

"Our young men die upon the battlements," 
Answered Ozias; "by the dusty wells 
Our wives and children." 

"They shall go and dwell 
With Seers and Prophets in eternal joy ! 
Is there no God?" 

"One only," Chabris spoke, 
"But now His face is darkened in a cloud. 
He sees not Israel." 



JUDITH 211 

"Is His mercy less 
Than Holofernes' ? Shall we place our faith 
In this fierce bull of Assur, — are we mad 
That we so tear our throats with our own hands?" 
And Judith's eyes flashed battle on the three, 
Though all the woman quivered at her lip 
Struggling with tears. 

"In God we place our trust," 
Said old Ozias, "yet for five days more." 

"Ah ! His time is not man's time," Judith cried, 
"And why should we, the dust about His feet, 
Decide the hour of our deliverance, 
Saying to Him, Thus shall Thou do, and so?" 

Then gray Ozias bowed his head, abashed 
That eighty winters had not made him wise, 
For all the drifted snow of his long beard : 
"This woman speaketh wisely. We were wrong 
That in our anguish mocked the Lord our God, 
The staff, the scrip, the stream whereat we drink." 
And then to Judith: "Child, what wouldst thou 
have?" 

"I know and know not. Something I know not 
Makes music in my bosom; as I move 
A presence goes before me, and I hear 
New voices mingling in the upper air ; 
Within my hand there seems another hand 
Close-prest, that leads me to yon dreadful camp; 
While in my brain the fragments of a dream 
Lie like a broken string of diamonds, 
The choicest missing. Ask no more. I know 
And know not. . . . See ! the very air is white 



212 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

With fingers pointing. Where they point I go: 
Some Spirit drags me thither, and I go." 

She spoke and paused : the three old men looked up 
And saw a sudden motion in the air 
Of white hands waving : and they dared not speak, 
But muffled their thin faces in their robes, 
And sat like those grim statues which the wind 
Near some unpeopled city in the East 
From foot to forehead wraps in desert dust. 

"Ere thrice the shadow of the temple slants 
Across the fountain, I shall come again." 
Thus Judith softly: then a gleam of light 
Played through the silken lasHes of her eyes, 
As lightning through the purple of a cloud 
On some still tropic evening, when the breeze 
Lifts not a single blossom from the bough : 
"What lies in that unfolded flower of time 
No man may know. The thing I can I will, 
Leaning on God, remembering how He loved 
Jacob in Syria when he fed the flocks 
Of Laban, and what miracles He did 
For Abraham and for Isaac at their need. 
Wait thou the end; and, till I come, keep thou 
The sanctuaries." 

And Ozias swore 
By those weird fingers pointing in the air, 
And by the soul of Abraham gone to rest, 
To keep the sanctuaries, though she came 
And found the bat sole tenant of the Tower, 
And all the people bleaching on the walls, 
And no voice left. Then Judith moved away, 
Her head bowed on her bosom, like to one 



JUDITH 213 

That moulds some subtle purpose in a dream, 
And in his passion rises up and walks 
Through labyrinths of slumber to the dawn. 

When she had gained her chamber she threw off 
The livery of sorrow for her lord, 
The cruel sackcloth that begirt her limbs, 
And from those ashen colors issuing forth, 
Seemed like a golden butterfly new-slipt 
From its dull chrysalis. Then, after bath, 
She braided in the darkness of her hair 
A thread of opals; on her rounded breast 
Spilt precious ointment; and put on the robes 
Whose rustling made her pause, half-garmented, 
To dream a moment of her bridal morn. 
Of snow-white samyte were the robes, and rich 
With delicate branch-work, silver- frosted star, 
And many a broidered lily-of-the-vale. 
These things became her as the scent the rose, 
For fairest things are beauty's natural dower. 
The sun that through the jealous casement stole 
Fawned on the Hebrew woman as she stood, 
Toyed with the oval pendant at her ear, 
And, like a lover, stealing to her lips 
Taught them a deeper crimson; then slipt down 
The tremulous lilies to the sandal straps 
That bound her snowy ankles. 

Forth she went, 
A glittering wonder, through the crowded streets, 
Her handmaid, like a shadow, following on. 
And as in summer when the beaded wheat 
Leans all one way, and with a longing look 
Marks the quick convolutions of the wind: 
So all eyes went with Judith as she moved, 



214 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

All hearts leaned to her with a weight of love. 

A starving woman lifted ghostly hands 

And blest her for old charities; a child 

Smiled on her through its tears, and one gaunt chief 

Threw down his battle-axe and doffed his helm, 

As if some bright Immortal swept him by. 

So forth she fared, the only thing of light 
In that dark city, thridding tortuous ways 
By gloomy arch and frowning barbacan, 
Until she reached a gate of triple brass 
That opened at her coming, and swung to 
With horrid clangor and a ring of bolts. 
And there, outside the city of her love, 
The warm blood at her pulses, Judith paused 
And drank the morning; then with silent prayers 
Moved on through flakes of sunlight, through the wood 
To Holofernes and his barbarous hordes. 

II. The Camp of Assur 

As on the housetops of a seaport town, 

After a storm has lashed the dangerous coast, 

The people crowd to watch some hopeless ship 

Tearing its heart upon the unseen reef, 

And strain their sight to catch the tattered sail 

That comes and goes, and glimmers, till at length 

No eye can find it, and a sudden awe 

Falls on the people, and no soul may speak: 

So, from the windy parapets and roofs 

Of the embattled city, anxious groups 

Watched the faint flutter of a woman's dress, — 

Judith's, — who, toiling up a distant hill, 

Seemed but a speck against the sunny green; 



JUDITH 215 

Yet ever as the wind drew back her robes, 
They saw her from the towers, until she reached 
The crest, and past into the azure sky. 
Then, each one gazing on his neighbor's face, 
Speechless, descended to the level world. 

Before his tent, stretched on a leopard-skin, 
Lay Holof ernes, ringed by his dark lords, — 
Himself the prince of darkness. At his side 
His iron helmet poured upon the grass 
Its plume of horse-hair; on his ponderous spear, 
The flinty barb thrust half its length in earth, 
As if some giant had flung it, hung his shield, 
And on the burnished circuit of the shield 
A sinewy dragon, rampant, silver-fanged, 
Glared horrible with sea-green emerald eyes; 
And as the sunshine struck across it, writhed, 
And seemed a type of those impatient lords 
Who, in the loud war-council here convened, 
Gave voice for battle, and with fiery words 
Opposed the cautious wisdom of their peers. 
So seemed the restless dragon on the shield. 

Baleful and sullen as a sulphurous cloud 
Packed with the lightning, Holofernes lay, 
Brooding upon the diverse arguments, 
Himself not arguing, but listening most 
To the curt phrases of the snow-haired chiefs. 
And some said: "Take the city by assault, 
And grind it into atoms at a blow." 
And some said: "Wait. There's that within the 

walls 
Shall gnaw its heart out, — hunger. Let us wait." 
To which the younger chieftains: "If we wait, 



216 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Ourselves shall starve. Like locusts we have fed 

Upon the land till there is nothing left, 

Nor grass, nor grain, nor any living thing. 

And if at last we take a famished town 

With fifty thousand ragged skeletons, 

What boots it ? We shall hunger all the same. 

Now, by great Baal, we'd rather die at once 

Than languish, scorching, on these sun-baked hills !" 

At which the others called them "fretful girls," 
And scoffed at them : "Ye should have stayed at home, 
And decked your hair with sunny butterflies, 
Like King Arphaxad's harlots. Know ye not 
Patience and valor are the head and heart 
Of warriors ? Who lacks in either, fails. 
Have we not hammered with our catapults 
Those stubborn gates ? Have we not hurled our men 
Against the angry torrent of their spears ? 
Mark how those birds that wheel above yon wood, 
In clanging columns, settle greedily down 
Upon the unearthed bodies of our dead. 
See where they rise, red-beaked and surfeited ! 
Has it availed ? Let us be patient, then, 
And bide the sovran pleasure of the gods." 
"And when," quoth one, "our stores of meat are gone, 
We'll even feed upon the tender flesh 
Of these tame girls, who, though they dress in steel, 
Like more the dulcet tremors of a lute 
Than the shrill whistle of an arrow-head." 

At this a score of falchions leapt in air, 
And hot-breathed words took flight from bearded lips, 
And they had slain each other in their heat, 
These savage captains, quick with bow and spear, 



JUDITH 217 

But that dark Holofernes started up 

To his full height, and, speaking not a word, 

With anger-knitted forehead glared at them. 

As they shrunk back, their passion and their shame 

Gave place to wonder, finding in their midst 

A woman whose exceeding radiance 

Of brow and bosom made her garments seem 

Threadbare and lustreless, yet whose attire 

Outshone the purples of a Persian queen. 

For Judith, who knew all the mountain paths 
As one may know the delicate azure veins, 
Each crossing each, on his beloved's wrist, 
Had stolen between the archers in the wood 
And gained the straggling outskirts of the camp, 
And seeing the haughty gestures of the chiefs, 
Halted, with fear, and knew not where to turn; 
Then taking heart, had silently approached, 
And stood among them, until then unseen. 
And in the air, like numerous swarms of bees, 
Arose the wondering murmurs of the throng, 
Which checking, Holofernes turned and cried, 
"Who breaks upon our councils?" angrily, 
But drinking then the beauty of her eyes, 
And seeing the rosy magic of her mouth, 
And all the fragrant summer of her hair 
Blown sweetly round her forehead, stood amazed; 
And in the light of her pure modesty 
His voice took gentler accent unawares: 
"Whence come ye?" 

"From yon city." 

"By our life, 
We thought the phantom of some murdered queen 



2l8 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Had risen from dead summers at our feet ! 
If these Judaean women are so shaped, 
Daughters of goddesses, let none be slain. 
What seek ye, woman, in the hostile camps 
Of Assur?" 

"Holof ernes." 

"This is he." 

"O good my lord," cried Judith, "if indeed 
Thou art that Holofernes whom I seek, 
And seeking dread to find, low at thy feet 
Behold thy handmaid, who in fear has flown 
From a doomed people." 

"Wherein thou wert wise 
Beyond the usual measure of thy sex, 
And shalt have such observance as a king 
Gives to his mistress, though our enemy. 
As for thy people, they shall rue the hour 
That brought not tribute to the lord of all, 
Nabuchodonosor. But thou shalt live." 

"O good my lord," thus Judith; "as thou wilt, 
So would thy handmaid; and I pray thee now 
Let those that listen stand awhile aloof, 
For I have that for thine especial ear 
Most precious to thee." 

Then the crowd fell back, 
Muttering, and half reluctantly, because 
Her beauty drew them as the moon the sea — 
Fell back and lingered, leaning on their shields 
Under the trees, some couchant in the grass, 



JUDITH 219 

Broad-throated, large-lunged Titans overthrown, 
Eying the Hebrew woman, whose sweet looks 
Brought them a sudden vision of their wives 
And longings for them : and her presence there 
Was as a spring that, in Sahara's wastes, 
Taking the thirsty traveller by surprise, 
Loosens its silver music at his feet. 



Thus Judith, modest, with down-drooping eyes: 

"My lord, if yet thou holdest in thy thought 
The words which Achior the Ammonite 
Once spake to thee concerning Israel, 
O treasure them, for in them was no guile. 
True is it, master, that our people kneel 
To an unseen but not an unknown God: 
By day and night He watches over us, 
And while we worship Him we cannot die, 
Our tabernacles shall be unprofaned, 
Our spears invincible; but if we sin, 
If we trangress the law by which we live, 
Our temples shall be desecrate, our tribes 
Thrust forth into the howling wilderness, 
Scourged and accursed. Therefore, O my lord, 
Seeing this nation wander from the faith 
Taught of the Prophets, I have fled dismayed, 
For fear the towers might crush me as they fall. 
Heed, Holofernes, what I speak this day, 
And if the thing I tell thee prove not true 
Ere thrice the sun goes down beyond those peaks, 
Then straightway plunge thy falchion in my breast, 
For 'twere not meet that thy handmaid should live, 
Having deceived the crown and flower of men." 



220 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

She spoke and paused : and sweeter on his ear 
Were Judith's words than ever seemed to him 
The wanton laughter of the Assyrian girls 
In the bazaars; and listening he heard not 
The never ceasing murmurs of the camp, 
The neighing of the awful battle-steeds, 
Nor the vain wind among the drowsy palms. 
The tents that straggled up the hot hillsides, 
The warriors lying in the tangled grass, 
The fanes and turrets of the distant town, 
And all that was, dissolved and past away, 
Save this one woman with her twilight eyes 
And the miraculous cadence of her voice. 

Then Judith, catching at the broken thread 
Of her discourse, resumed, to closer draw 
The silken net about the foolish prince; 
And as she spoke, from time to time her gaze 
Dwelt on his massive stature, and she saw 
That he was shapely, knitted like a god, 
A tower beside the men of her own land. 

"Heed, Holof ernes, what I speak this day, 
And thou shalt rule not only Bethulia, 
Rich with its hundred altars' crusted gold, 
But Cades-Barne, Jerusalem, and all 
The vast hill-country even to the sea: 
For I am come to give -unto thy hands 
The key of Israel — Israel now no more, 
Since she disowns her Prophets and her God. 
Know then, O lord, it is our yearly use 
To lay aside the first fruit of the grain, 
And so much oil, so many skins of wine, 
Which, being sanctified, are kept intact 



JUDITH 221 

For the High Priests who serve before our God 
In the great temple at Jerusalem. 
This holy food — which even to touch is death — 
The rulers, sliding from their ancient faith, 
Would fain lay hands on, being well-nigh starved; 
And they have sent a runner to the Priests 
(The Jew Ben Raphaim, who, at dead of night, 
Shot like a javelin between thy guards), 
Bearing a parchment begging that the Church 
Yield them permit to eat the sacred corn. 
But 'tis not lawful they should do this thing, 
Yet will they do it. Then shalt thou behold 
The archers tumbling headlong from the walls, 
Their strength gone from them; thou shalt see the 

spears 
Splitting like reeds within the spearman's hands, 
And the pale captains tottering like old men 
Stricken with palsy. Then, O glorious prince, 
Then with thy trumpets blaring doleful dooms, 
And thy silk banners flapping in the wind, 
With squares of men and eager clouds of horse 
Thou shalt swoop down on them, and strike them 

dead! 
But now, my lord, before this come to pass, 
Three days must wane, for they touch not the food 
Until the Jew Ben Raphaim shall return 
With the Priests' message. Here among thy hosts, 
O Holofernes, will I dwell the while, 
Asking but this, that I and my handmaid 
Each night, at the twelfth hour, may egress have 
Unto the valley, there to weep and pray 
That God forsake this nation in its sin. 
And as my prophecy prove true or false, 
So be it with me." 



222 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Judith ceased, and stood, 
Her hands across her bosom, as in prayer; 
And Holof ernes answered: 

"Be it so. 
And if, O pearl of women, the event 
Prove not a drawf beside the prophecy, 
Then there's no woman like thee — no, not one. 
Thy name shall be renowned through the world, 
Music shall wait on thee, thou shalt have crowns, 
And jewel-chests of costly camphor-wood, 
And robes as glossy as the ring-dove's neck, 
And milk-white mares, and chariots, and slaves: 
And thou shalt dwell with me in Nineveh, 
In Nineveh, the City of the Gods !" 

At which the Jewish woman bowed her head 
Humbly, that Holofernes might not see 
How blanched her cheek grew. "Even as thou wilt, 
So would thy servant." At a word the slaves 
Brought meat and wine, and placed them in a tent, 
A silk pavilion, wrought with arabesques, 
That stood apart, for Judith and her maid. 
But Judith ate not, saying: "Master, no. 
It is not lawful that we taste of these; 
My maid has brought a pouch of parched corn, 
And bread, and figs, and wine of our own land, 
Which shall not fail us." Holofernes said, 
"So let it be," and lifting up the screen 
Past out, and left them sitting in the tent. 

That day he mixt not with the warriors 
As was his wont, nor watched them at their games 
In the wide shadow of the terebinth-trees; 



JUDITH 223 

But up and down within a lonely grove 
Paced slowly, brooding on her perfect face, 
Saying her smooth words over to himself, 
Heedless of time, till he looked up and saw 
The spectre of the Twilight on the hills. 

The fame of Judith's loveliness had flown 
From lip to lip throughout the canvas town, 
And as the evening deepened, many came 
From neighboring camps, with frivolous excuse, 
To pass the green pavilion — long-haired chiefs 
That dwelt by the Hydaspe, and the sons 
Of the Elymeans, and slim Tartar youths; 
But saw not her, who, shut from common air, 
Basked in the twilight of the tapestries. 

But when night came, and all the camp was still, 
And nothing moved beneath the icy stars 
In their blue bourns, except some stealthy guard, 
A shadow among shadows, Judith rose, 
Calling her servant, and the sentinel 
Drew back, and let her pass beyond the lines 
Into the valley. And her heart was full, 
Seeing the watch-fires burning on the towers 
Of her own city: and she knelt and prayed 
For it and them that dwelt within its walls, 
And was refreshed — such balm there lies in prayer 
For those who know God listens. Straightway then 
The two returned, and all the camp was still. 

One cresset twinkled dimly in the tent 
Of Holofernes, and Bagoas, his slave, 
Lay prone across the matting at the door, 
Drunk with the wine of slumber; but his lord 



224 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Slept not, or, sleeping, rested not for thought 
Of Judith's beauty. Two large lucent eyes, 
Tender and full as moons, dawned on his sleep; 
And when he woke, they rilled the vacant dark 
With an unearthly splendor. All night long 
A stately figure glided through his dream; 
Sometimes a queenly diadem weighed down 
Its braided tresses, and sometimes it came 
Draped only in a misty cloud of veils, 
Like the King's dancing-girl at Nineveh. 
And once it bent above him in the gloom, 
And touched his forehead with most hungry lips. 
Then Holof ernes turned upon his couch, 
And, yearning for the daybreak, slept no more. 



III. The Flight 

In the far east, as viewless tides of time 

Drew on the drifting shallop of the Dawn, 

A fringe of gold went rippling up the gray, 

And breaking rosily on cliff and spur, 

Still left the vale in shadow. While the fog 

Folded the camp of Assur, and the dew 

Yet shook in clusters on the new green leaf, 

And not a bird had dipt a wing in air, 

The restless captain, haggard with no sleep, 

Stept over the curved body of his slave, 

And thridding moodily the dingy tents, 

Hives packed with sleepers, stood within the grove 

Where he had loitered the preceding day; 

There sat him down upon a scarp of rock, 

Mantled with lichen, like a Druid throne, 

And in the cool, gray twilight gave his thought 



JUDITH 225 

Wings; but however wide his fancies flew, 
They circled still the figure of his dream. 

He sat : before him rose the fluted domes 
Of Nineveh his city, and he heard 
The clatter of the merchants in the booths 
Selling their merchandise : and now he breathed 
The airs of a great river, sweeping down 
Past carven pillars, under tamarisk boughs, 
To where the broad sea sparkled : then he groped 
In a damp catacomb, he knew not where, 
By torchlight, hunting for his own grim name 
On some sarcophagus : and as he mused, 
From out the ruined kingdom of the Past 
Glided the myriad women he had wronged, 
The half-forgotten passions of his youth; 
Dark-browed were some, with haughty, sultry eyes, 
Imperious and most ferocious loves; 
And some, meek blondes with lengths of flaxen hair, — 
Daughters of Sunrise, shaped of fire and snow, 
And Holofernes smiled a bitter smile 
Seeing these spectres in his re very, 
When suddenly one face among the train 
Turned full upon him, — such a piteous face, 
Blanched with such anguish, looking such reproach, 
So sunken-eyed and awful in its woe, 
His heart shook in his bosom, and he rose 
As if to smite it, and before him stood 
Bagoas, the bondsman, bearing in his arms 
A jar of water, while the morning broke 
In dewy splendor all about the grove. 

Then Holofernes, vext that he was cowed 
By his own fantasy, strode back to camp, 



226 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Bagoas following, sullen, like a hound 
That takes the color of his master's mood. 
And with the troubled captain went the shapes 
Which even the daylight could not exorcise. 

"Go, fetch me wine, and let my soul make cheer, 
For I am sick with visions of the night. 
Some strangest malady of breast and brain 
Hath so unnerved me that a rustling leaf 
Sets my pulse leaping. 'Tis a family flaw, 
A flaw in men else flawless, this dark spell: 
I do remember when my grandsire died, 
He thought a blackened ^tbiope he had slain 
Was strangling him; and, later, my own sire 
Went mad with dreams the day before his death. 
And I, too ? Slave ! go fetch me seas of wine, 
That I may drown these fantasies — no, stay ! 
Ransack the camps for choicest flesh and fruit, 
And spread a feast within my tent this night, 
And hang the place with garlands of new flowers; 
Then bid the Hebrew woman, yea or nay, 
To banquet with us. As thou lov'st the light, 
Bring her; and if indeed the gods have called, 
The gods shall find me sitting at my feast 
Consorting with a daughter of the gods ! " 

Thus Holof ernes, turning on his heel 
Impatiently; and straight Bagoas went 
And spoiled the camps of viands for the feast, 
And hung the place with flowers, as he was bid; 
And seeing Judith's servant at the well, 
Gave his lord's message, to which answer came: 
" O what am I that should gainsay my lord ?" 
And Holof ernes smiled within, and thought: 



JUDITH 227 

"Or life or death, if I should have her not 
In spite of all, my mighty name would be 
A word for laughter among womankind." 

"So soon!" thought Judith. "Flying pulse, be 
still ! 
O Thou who lovest Israel, give me strength 
And cunning such as never woman had, 
That my deceit may be his stripe and scar, 
My kisses his destruction ! This for thee, 
My city, Bethulia, this for thee ! " 

And thrice that day she prayed within her heart, 
Bowed down among the cushions of the tent 
In shame and wretchedness; and thus she prayed: 
"O save me from him, Lord ! but save me most 
From mine own sinful self : for, lo ! this man, 
Though viler than the vilest thing that walks, 
A worshipper of fire and senseless stone, 
Slayer of children, enemy of God, — 
He, even he, O Lord, forgive my sin, 
Hath by his heathen beauty moved me more 
Than should a. daughter of Judaea be moved, 
Save by the noblest. Clothe me with Thy love, 
And rescue me, and let me trample down 
All evil thought, and from my baser self 
Climb up to Thee, that aftertimes may say: 
She tore the guilty passion from her soul, — 
Judith the pure, the faithful unto death. " 

Half-seen behind the forehead of a crag 
The evening-star grew sharp against the dusk, 
As Judith lingered by the curtained door 
Of her pavilion, waiting for Bagoas : 
Erewhile he came, and led her to the tent 



228 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Of Holofernes; and she entered in, 

And knelt before him in the cresset's glare 

Demurely, like a slave-girl at the feet 

Of her new master, while the modest blood 

Makes protest to the eyelids; and he leaned 

Graciously over her, and bade her rise 

And sit beside him on the leopard-skins. 

But Judith would not, yet with gentlest grace 

Would not; and partly to conceal her blush, 

Partly to quell the riot in her breast, 

She turned, and wrapt her in her fleecy scarf, 

And stood aloof, nor looked as one that breathed, 

But rather like some jewelled deity 

Ta'en by a conqueror from its sacred niche, 

And placed among the trappings of his tent, — 

So pure was Judith. 

For a moment's space 
She stood, then stealing softly to his side, 
Knelt down by him, and with uplifted face, 
Whereon the red rose blossomed with the white : 
"This night, my lord, no other slave than I 
Shall wait on thee with fruits and flowers and wine. 
So subtle am I, I shall know thy wish 
Ere thou canst speak it. Let Bagoas go 
Among his people: let me wait and serve, 
More happy as thy handmaid than thy guest." 

Thereat he laughed, and, humoring her mood, 
Gave the black bondsman freedom for the night. 
Then Judith moved, obsequious, and placed 
The meats before him, and poured out the wine, 
Holding the golden goblet while he ate, 
Nor ever past it empty; and the wine 



JUDITH 229 

Seemed richer to him for those slender hands. 
So Judith served, and Holofernes drank, 
Until the lamps that glimmered round the tent 
In mad processions danced before his gaze. 

Without, the moon dropt down behind the sky; 
Within, the odors of the heavy flowers, 
And the aromas of the mist that curled 
From swinging cressets, stole into the air; 
And through the mist he saw her come and go, 
Now showing a faultless arm against the light, 
And now a dainty sanjdal set with gems. 
At last he knew not in what place he was. 
For as a man who, softly held by sleep, 
Knows that he dreams, yet knows not true from false, 
Perplext between the margins of two worlds : 
So Holofernes, flushed with the red wine. 

Like a bride's eyes, the eyes of Judith shone, 
As ever bending over him with smiles 
She filled the generous chalice to the edge; 
And half he shrunk from her, and knew not why, 
Then wholly loved her for her loveliness, 
And drew her close to him, and breathed her breath; 
And once he thought the Hebrew woman sang 
A wine-song, touching on a certain king 
Who, dying of strange sickness, drank, and past 
Beyond the touch of mortal agony, — 
A vague tradition of the cunning sprite 
That dwells within the circle of the grape. 
And thus he heard, or fancied that he heard : — 

"The small green grapes in countless clusters grew, 
Feeding on mystic moonlight and white dew 
And mellow sunshine, the long summer through : 



230 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

"Till, with faint tremor in her veins, the Vine 
Felt the delicious pulses of the wine; 
And the grapes ripened in the year's decline. 

"And day by day the Virgins watched their charge; 
And when, at last, beyond the horizon's marge, 
The harvest-moon droopt beautiful and large, 

"The subtle spirit in the grape was caught, 
And to the slowly dying Monarch brought, 
In a great cup fantastically wrought, 

"Whereof he drank; then straightway from his 
brain 
Went the weird malady, and once again 
He walked the Palace, free of scar or pain, — 

"But strangely changed, for somehow he had lost 
Body and voice: the courtiers, as he crost 
The royal chambers, whispered, — The King's Ghost!" 

"A potent medicine for kings and men," 
Thus Holof ernes; "he was wise to drink. 
Be thou as wise, fair Judith." As he spoke, 
He stoopt to kiss the treacherous soft hand 
That rested like a snowflake on his arm, 
But stooping reeled, and from the place he sat 
Toppled, and fell among the leopard-skins: 
There lay, nor stirred; and ere ten beats of heart, 
The tawny giant slumbered. Judith knelt 
And gazed upon him, and her thoughts were dark; 
For half she longed to bid her purpose die, — 
To stay, to weep, to fold him in her arms, 
To let her long hair loose upon his face, 



JUDITH 231 

As on a mountain-top some amorous cloud 
Lets down its sombre tresses of fine rain. 
For one wild instant in her burning arms 
She held him sleeping; then grew wan as death, 
Relaxed her hold, and starting from his side 
As if an asp had stung her to the quick, 
Listened; and listening, she heard the moans 
Of little children moaning in the streets 
Of Bethulia, saw famished women pass, 
Wringing their hands, and on the broken walls 
The flower of Israel dying. 

With quick breath 
Judith blew out the tapers, all save one, 
And from his twisted baldrick loosed the sword, 
And grasping the huge hilt with her two hands, 
Thrice smote the Prince of Assur as he lay, 
Thrice on his neck she smote him as he lay, 
And from the brawny shoulders rolled the head 
Winking and ghastly in the cresset's light; 
Which done, she fled into the yawning dark, 
There met her maid, who, stealing to the tent, 
Pulled down the crimson arras on the corse, 
And in her mantle wrapt the brazen head, 
And brought it with her; and a great gong boomed 
Twelve, as the women glided past the guard 
With measured footstep: but outside the camp, 
Terror seized on them, and they fled like wraiths 
Through the hushed midnight into the black woods, 
Where, from gnarled roots and ancient, palsied trees, 
Dread shapes, upstarting, clutched at them; and once 
A nameless bird in branches overhead 
Screeched, and the blood grew cold about their hearts. 
By mouldy caves, the hooded viper's haunt, 



232 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Down perilous steeps, and through the desolate gorge, 
Onward they flew, with madly streaming hair, 
Bearing their hideous burden, till at last, 
Wild with the pregnant horrors of the night, 
They dashed themselves against the City's gate. 

The hours dragged by, and in the Assur camp 
The pulse of life was throbbing languidly. 
When from the outer waste an Arab scout 
Rushed pale and breathless on the morning watch, 
With a strange story of a Head that hung 
High in the air above the City's wall, — 
A livid Head with knotted, snake-like curls, — 
And how the face was like a face he knew, 
And how it turned and twisted in the wind, 
And how it stared upon him with fixt orbs, 
Till it was not in mortal man to stay; 
And how he fled, and how he thought the Thing 
Came bowling through the wheat-fields after him. 
And some that listened were appalled, and some 
Derided him; but not the less they threw 
A furtive glance toward the shadowy wood. 

Bagoas, among the idlers, heard the man, 
And quick to bear the tidings to his lord, 
Ran to the tent, and called, "My lord, awake! 
Awake, my lord ! " and lingered for reply. 
But answer came there none. Again he called, 
And all was still. Then, laughing in his heart 
To think how deeply Holofernes slept 
Wrapt in soft arms, he lifted up the screen, 
And marvelled, finding no one in the tent 
Save Holofernes, buried, as it were, 
Head foremost in the canopies. He stoopt, 



JUDITH 233 

And drawing back the damask folds, beheld 
His master, a grim torso, lying dead. 

As in some breathless wilderness at night 
A leopard, pinioned by a falling tree, 
Shrieks, and the echoes, mimicking the cry, 
Repeat it in a thousand different keys 
By lonely heights and unimagined caves: 
So shrieked Bagoas, and so his cry was caught 
And voiced along the vast Assyrian lines, 
And buffeted among the hundred hills. 
Then ceased the tumult sudden as it rose, 
And a great silence fell upon the camps, 
And all the people stood like blocks of stone 
In some deserted quarry: then a voice 
Blown through a trumpet clamored: He is dead! 
The Prince is dead 1 The Hebrew witch hath slain 
Prince Holof ernes I Fly, Assyrians, fly / 

As from its lair the mad tornado leaps, 
And, seizing on the yellow desert sands, 
Hurls them in swirling masses, cloud on cloud: 
So, at the sounding of that baleful voice, 
A panic seized the mighty Assur hosts, 
And flung them from their places. With wild shouts 
Across the hills in pale dismay they fled, 
Trampling the sick and wounded under foot, 
Leaving their tents, their camels, and their arms, 
Their horses, and their gilded chariots. 
Then with a dull metallic clang the gates 
Of Bethulia opened, and from each 
A sea of spears surged down the arid hills 
And broke remorseless on the flying foe, — 
Now hemmed them in upon a river's bank, 



234 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Now drove them shrieking down a precipice, 
Now in the mountain-passes slaughtered them, 
Until the land, for many a weary league, 
Was red, as in the sunset, with their blood. 
And other cities, when they saw the rout 
Of Holofernes, burst their gates, and joined 
With trump and banner in the mad pursuit. 
Three days before those unrelenting spears 
The cohorts fled, but on the fourth they past 
Beyond Damascus into their own land. 

So, by God's grace and this one woman's hand, 
The tombs and temples of the Just were saved; 
And evermore throughout fair Israel 
The name of Judith meant all noblest things 
In thought and deed; and Judith's life was rich 
With that content the world takes not away. 
And far-off kings, enamoured of her fame, 
Bluff princes, dwellers by the salt sea-sands, 
Sent caskets most laboriously carved, . 
And cloths of gold, and papyrus scrolls, whereon 
Was writ their passion; then themselves did come 
With spicy caravans, in purple state, 
To seek regard from her imperial eyes. 
But she remained unwed, and to the end 
Walked with the angels in her widow's weeds. 



LEGENDS AND LYRICS 
FRIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK 

A.D. I200 

The Friar Jerome, for some slight sin, 
Done in his youth, was struck with woe. 
"When I am dead," quoth Friar Jerome, 
"Surely, I think my soul will go 
Shuddering through the darkened spheres, 
Down to eternal fires below ! 
I shall not dare from that dread place 
To lift mine eyes to Jesus' face, 
Nor Mary's, as she sits adored 
At the feet of Christ the Lord. 
Alas ! December's all too brief 
For me to hope to wipe away 
The memory of my sinful May ! " 
And Friar Jerome was full of grief, 
That April evening, as he lay 
On the straw pallet in his cell. 
He scarcely heard the curfew-bell 
Calling the brotherhood to prayer; 
But he arose, for 'twas his care 
Nightly to feed the hungry poor 
That crowded to the Convent door. 

His choicest duty it had been: 
But this one night it weighed him down. 
"What work for an immortal soul, 
To feed and clothe some lazy clown ! 
235 



236 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Is there no action worth my mood, 
No deed of daring, high and pure, 
That shall, when I am dead, endure, 
A well-spring of perpetual good?" 

And straight he thought of those great tomes 
With clamps of gold, — the Convent's boast, — 
How they endured, while kings and realms 
Past into darkness and were lost; 
How they had stood from age to age, 
Clad in their yellow vellum-mail, 
'Gainst which the Paynim's godless rage, 
The Vandal's fire, could naught avail: 
Though heathen sword-blows fell like hail, 
Though cities ran with Christian blood, 
Imperishable they had stood ! 
They did not seem like books to him, 
But Heroes, Martyrs, Saints, — themselves 
The things they told of, not mere books 
Ranged grimly on the oaken shelves. 

To those dim alcoves, far withdrawn, 
He turned with measured steps and slow, 
Trimming his lantern as he went; 
And there, among the shadows, bent 
Above one ponderous folio, 
With whose miraculous text were blent 
Seraphic faces : Angels, crowned 
With rings of melting amethyst; 
Mute, patient Martyrs, cruelly bound 
To blazing fagots; here and there, 
Some bold, serene Evangelist, 
Or Mary in her sunny hair: 
And here and there from out the words 
A brilliant tropic bird took flight; 



FRIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK 237 

And through the margins many a vine 
Went wandering, — roses, red and white, 
Tulip, wind-flower, and columbine 
Blossomed. To his believing mind 
These things were real, and the wind, 
Blown through the mullioned window, took 
Scent from the lilies in the book. 

" Santa Maria!" cried Friar Jerome, 
''Whatever man illumined this, 
Though he were steeped heart-deep- in sin, 
Was worthy of unending bliss, 
And no doubt hath it ! Ah ! dear Lord, 
Might I so beautify Thy Word ! 
What sacristan, the convents through, 
Transcribes with such precision? who 
Does such initials as I do? 
Lo I I will gird me to this work, 
And save me, ere the one chance slips. 
On smooth, clean parchment I'll engross 
The Prophet's fell Apocalypse; 
And as I write from day to day, 
Perchance my sins will pass away." 

So Friar Jerome began his Book. 
From break of dawn till curfew-chime 
He bent above the lengthening page, 
Like some rapt poet o'er his rhyme. 
He scarcely paused to tell his beads, 
Except at night; and then he lay 
And tost, unrestful, on the straw, 
Impatient for the coming day, — 
Working like one who feels, perchance, 
That, ere the longed-for goal be won, 



2^8 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Ere Beauty bare her perfect breast, 
Black Death may pluck him from the sun. 
, At intervals the busy brook, 
Turning the mill-wheel, caught his ear; 
And through the grating of the cell 
He saw the honeysuckles peer; 
And knew 'twas summer, that the sheep 
In fragrant pastures lay asleep; 
And felt, that, somehow, God was near. 
In his green pulpit on the elm, 
The robin, abbot of that wood, 
Held forth by times; and Friar Jerome 
Listened, and smiled, and understood. 

While summer wrapt the blissful land, 
What joy it was to labor so, 
To see the long-tressed Angels grow 
Beneath the cunning of his hand, 
Vignette and tail-piece deftly wrought ! 
And little recked he of the poor 
That missed him at the Convent door; 
Or, thinking of them, put the thought 
Aside. "I feed the souls of men 
Henceforth, and not their bodies !" — yet 
Their sharp, pinched features, now and then, 
Stole in between him and his Book, 
And filled him with a vague regret. 

Now on that region fell a blight: 
The corn grew cankered in its sheath; 
And from the verdurous uplands rolled 
A sultry vapor fraught with death, — 
A poisonous mist, that, like a pall, 
Hung black and stagnant over all. 



FRIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK 239 

Then came the sickness, — the malign 
Green-spotted terror, called the Pest, 
That took the light from loving eyes, 
And made the young bride's gentle breast 
A fatal pillow. Ah ! the woe, 
The crime, the madness that befell ! 
In one short night that vale became 
More foul than Dante's inmost hell. 
Men curst their wives; and mothers left 
Their nursing babes alone to die, 
And wantoned, singing, through the streets, 
With shameless brow and frenzied eye; 
And senseless clowns, not fearing God, — 
Such power the spotted fever had, — 
Razed Cragwood Castle on the hill, 
Pillaged the wine-bins, and went mad. 
And evermore that dreadful pall 
Of mist hung stagnant over all : 
By day, a sickly light broke through 
The heated fog, on town and field; 
By night the moon, in anger, turned 
Against the earth its mottled shield. 

Then from the Convent, two and two, 
The Prior chanting at their head, 
The monks went forth to shrive the sick, 
And give the hungry grave its dead, — 
Only Jerome, he went not forth, 
But hiding in his dusty nook, 
"Let come what will, I must illume 
The last ten pages of my Book 1 " 
He drew his stool before the desk, 
And sat him down, distraught and wan, 
To paint his darling masterpiece, 



2 40 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

The stately figure of Saint John. 
He sketched the head with pious care, 
Laid in the tint, when, powers of Grace! 
He found a grinning Death's-head there, 
And not the grand Apostle's face ! 

Then up he rose with one long cry: 
" 'Tis Satan's self does this," cried he, 
" Because I shut and barred my heart 
When Thou didst loudest call to me ! 

Lord, Thou know'st the thoughts of men, 
Thou know'st that I did yearn to make 
Thy Word more lovely to the eyes 

Of sinful souls, for Christ his sake ! 
Nathless, I leave the task undone: 

1 give up all to follow Thee, — 
Even like him who gave his nets 
To winds and waves by Galilee ! " 

Which said, he closed the precious Book 
In silence with a reverent hand; 
And, drawing his cowl about his face, 
Went forth into the Stricken Land. 
And there was joy in heaven that day, — 
More joy o'er this forlorn old friar 
Than over fifty sinless men 
Who never struggled with desire ! 

What deeds he did in that dark town, 
What hearts he soothed with anguish torn, 
What weary ways of woe he trod, 
Are written in the Book of God, 
And shall be read at Judgment Morn. 
The weeks crept on, when, one still day, 



FRIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK 241 

God's awful presence filled the sky, 
And that black vapor floated by, 
And, lo ! the sickness past away. 
With silvery clang, by thorpe and town, 
The bells made merry in their spires, 
Men kissed each other on the street, 
And music piped to dancing feet 
The livelong night, by roaring fires ! 

Then Friar Jerome, a wasted shape, — 
For he had taken the Plague at last, — 
Rose up, and through the happy town, 
And through the wintry woodlands, past 
Into the Convent. What a gloom 
Sat brooding in each desolate room ! 
What silence in the corridor ! 
For of that long, innumerous train 
Which issued forth a month before, 
Scarce twenty had come back again ! 

Counting his rosary step by step, 
With a forlorn and vacant air, 
Like some unshriven churchyard thing, 
The Friar crawled up the mouldy stair 
To his damp cell, that he might look 
Once more on his beloved Book. 

And there it lay upon the stand, 
Open ! — he had not left it so. 
He grasped it, with a cry; for, lo ! 
He saw that some angelic hand, 
While he was gone, had finished it ! 
There 'twas complete, as he had planned ! 
There, at the end, stood jFmtS, writ 



242 



ALDRICH'S POEMS 

And gilded as no man could do, — 

Not even that pious anchoret, 

Bilfrid, the wonderful, — nor yet 

The miniatore Ethelwold, — 

Nor Durham's Bishop, who of old 

(England still hoards the priceless leaves) 

Did the Four Gospels all in gold. 

And Friar Jerome nor spoke nor stirred, 

But, with his eyes fixed on that word, 

He past from sin and want and scorn; 

And suddenly the chapel-bells 

Rang in the holy Christmas-Morn ! 

In those wild wars which racked the land 
Since then, and kingdoms rent in twain, 
The Friar's Beautiful Book was lost, — 
That miracle of hand and brain : 
Yet, though its leaves were torn and tost, 
The volume was not writ in vain ! 



GARNAUT HALL 

A.D. 1598 

Here or hereafter? In the body here, 
Or in the soul hereafter, do we writhe, 
Atoning for the malice of our lives ? 
Of the uncounted millions that have died, 
Not one has slipped the napkin from his chin 
And loosed the jaw to tell us : even he, 
The intrepid Captain, who gave life to find 
A doubtful way through clanging worlds of ice, 
A fine inquisitive spirit, you would think, 
One to cross-question Fate complacently, 



GARNAUT HALL 243 

Less for his own sake than for Science's, — 
Not even he,. with his rich gathered lore, 
Returns from that dark journey down to death. 
Here or hereafter? Only this I know, 
That, whatsoever happen afterwards, 
Some men do penance on this side the grave. 
Thus Regnald Garnaut for his cruel heart. 

Owner and lord was he of Garnaut Hall, 
A relic of the Norman conquerors, — 
A quaint, rook-haunted pile of masonry, 
From whose top battlement, a windy height, 
Regnald could view his twenty prosperous farms; 
His creaking mill, that, perched upon a cliff, 
With outspread wings seemed ever taking flight; 
The red-roofed cottages, the high-walled park, 
The noisy aviary, and, nearer by, 
The snow-white Doric parsonage, — all his own. 
And all his own were chests of antique plate, 
Horses and hounds and falcons, curious books, 
Chain-armor, helmets, Gobelin tapestry, 
And half a mile of painted ancestors. 
Lord of these things, he wanted one thing more, 
Not having which, all else to him was dross. 

For Agnes Vail, the curate's only child, — 
A little Saxon wild-flower that had grown 
Unheeded into beauty day by day, 
And much too delicate for this rude world, — 
With that intuitive wisdom of the pure, 
Saw that he loved her beauty, not herself, 
And shrank from him, and when he came to speech 
Parried his meaning with a woman's wit. 
And Regnald's tender vanity was hurt. 



244 



ALDRICH'S POEMS 



"Why, then," snarled he, "if I had asked the Queen 

To pick me some fair woman from the Court, 

'Twere but the asking. A blind curate's girl, 

It seems, is somewhat difficult, — must have, 

To feed her pride, our coronet withal ! " 

And Agnes from that day avoided him, 

Clinging more closely to the old man's side; 

And in the chapel never raised an eye, 

But knelt there like a mediaeval saint, 

Her holiness her buckler and her shield, — 

That, and the golden floss of her long hair. 

And Regnald felt that somehow he was foiled, — 
Foiled, but not beaten. He would have his way. 
Meanwhile he chafed; but shortly after this 
Regnald received the sorest hurt of all. 
For, one eve, lounging idly in the close, 
Watching the windows of the parsonage, 
He heard low voices in the alder trees, 
Voices he knew, and one that sweetly said, 
"Thine !" and he paused with choking heart, and saw 
Eustace, his brother, and fair Agnes Vail 
In the soft moonrise lingering with claspt hands. 
The two past on, and Regnald hid himself 
Among the brushwood, where his vulpine eyes 
Dilated in the darkness as they past. 
There, in the dark, he lay a bitter hour 
Gnawing his nails, and then arose unseen 
And crept away with murder in his soul. 

Eustace ! curse on him, with his handsome eyes ! 
Regnald had envied Eustace many a day, 
Envied his fame, and that exceeding grace 
And courtliness which he had learned at Court 



GARNAUT HALL 245 

Of Sidney, Raleigh, Essex, and the rest: 
For when their father, lean Sir Egbert, died, 
Eustace, whose fortune dangled at his thigh, — 
A Damask blade, — had hastened to the Court 
To line his purse, perchance to build a name; 
And catching there the passion of the time, 
He, with a score of doughty Devon lads, 
Sailed with bold Drake into the Spanish seas; 
Returning whence, with several ugly scars, — 
Which made him lovelier in women's eyes, — 
And many a chest of ingots, — not the less 
These latter made him lovely, — sunned himself, 
Sometimes at Court, sometimes at Garnaut Hall, — 
At Court, by favor of the Virgin Queen, 
For great Elizabeth had smiled on him. 

So Regnald, who was neither good nor brave 
Nor graceful, liked not Eustace from the start, 
And this night hated him. With angry brows, 
He sat in a bleak chamber of the Hall, 
His fingers toying with his poniard's point 
Abstractedly. Three times the ancient clock, 
Bolt-upright like a mummy in its case, 
Doled out the hour: at length the round red moon, 
Rising above the sombre walnut trees, 
Looked in on Regnald nursing his dark thought, 
Looked in on the stiff portraits on the wall, 
And dead Sir Egbert's empty coat-of-mail. 

A quick step sounded on the gravel-walk, 
And then came Eustace, humming a sea-song, 
Of how the Grace of Devon, with ten guns, 
And Master Raleigh on the quarter-deck, 
Bore down and tackled the great galleon, 



24 6 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Madre de Dios, raked her fore and aft, 
And took her bullion, — singing, light at heart, 
His first love's first kiss warm upon his lip. 
Straight onward came young Eustace to his death ! 
For hidden behind the arras near the stair 
Stood Regnald, like the Daemon in the play, 
Grasping his rapier part-way down the blade 
To strike the foul blow with its heavy hilt. 
Straight on came Eustace, — blithely ran the song, 
"Old England's darlings are her hearts of oak." 
The lights were out, and not a soul astir, 
Or else the dead man's scabbard, as it clashed 
Against the marble pavement when he fell, 
Had brought a witness. Not a breath or sound, 
Only the sad wind wailing in the tower, 
Only the mastiff growling in his sleep, 
Outside the gate, and pawing at his dream. 

Now in a wing of that old gallery, 
Hung with the relics of forgotten feuds, 
A certain door, which none but Regnald knew, 
Was fashioned like the panels of the wall, 
And so concealed by carven grapes and flowers 
A man could search for it a dozen years 
And swear it was not, though his touch had been 
Upon the very panel where it was. 
The secret spring that opened it unclosed 
An inner door of iron-studded oak, 
Guarding a narrow chamber, where, perchance, 
Some bygone lord of Garnaut Hall had hid 
His threatened treasure, or, most like, bestowed 
Some too adventurous antagonist. 
Sealed in the compass of that stifling room, 
A man might live, at best, but half an hour. 



GARNAUT HALL 247 

Hither did Regnald bear his brother's corse 
And set it down. Perhaps he paused to gaze 
A moment on the quiet moonlit face, 
The face yet beautiful with new-told love ! 

Perhaps his heart misgave him, — or, perhaps 

Now, whether 'twas some dark avenging Hand, 
Or whether 'twas some fatal freak of wind, 
We may not know, but suddenly the door 
Without slammed to, and there was Regnald shut 
Beyond escape, for on the inner side 
Was neither spring nor bolt to set him free ! 

Mother of Mercy ! what were a whole life 
Of pain and penury and conscience-smart 
To that half-hour of Regnald's with his Dead? 

— The joyous sun rose over the white cliffs 
Of Devon, sparkled through the walnut trees, 
And broke the death-like slumber of the Hall. 
The keeper fetched their breakfast to the hounds; 
The smart, young ostler whistled in the stalls; 
The pretty housemaid tripped from room to room; 
And grave and grand behind his master's chair, 
But wroth within to have the partridge spoil, 
The senile butler waited for his lord. 
But neither Regnald nor young Eustace came. 
And when 'twas found that neither slept at Hall 
That night, their couches being still unprest, 
The servants stared. And as the day wore on, 
And evening came, and then another day, 
And yet another, till a week had gone, 
The wonder spread, and riders sent in haste 
Scoured the country, dragged the neighboring streams, 



248 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Tracked wayward footprints to the great chalk bluffs, 
But found not Regnald, lord of Garnaut Hall. 
The place that knew him knew him never more. 

The red leaf withered and the green leaf grew. 
And Agnes Vail, the little Saxon rose, 
Waxed pale and paler, till the country-folk 
Half guessed her fate was somehow intertwined 
With that dark house. When her pure soul had 

past, — 
Just as a perfume floats from out the world, — 
Wild tales were told of how the brothers loved 
The self-same maid, whom neither one would wed 
Because the other loved her as his life; 
And that the two, at midnight, in despair, 
From one sheer cliff plunged headlong in the sea. 
And when, at night, the hoarse east-wind rose high, 
Rattled the lintels, clamoring at the door, 
The children huddled closer round the hearth 
And whispered very softly with themselves, 
" That's Master Regnald looking for his Bride!" 

The red leaf withered and the green leaf grew. 
Decay and dolor settled on the Hall. 
The wind went howling in the dismal rooms, 
Rustling the arras; and the wainscot-mouse 
Gnawed through the mighty Garnauts on the wall, 
And made a lodging for her glossy young 
In dead Sir Egbert's empty coat-of-mail ; 
The griffon dropt from off the blazoned shield; 
The stables rotted ; and a poisonous vine 
Stretched its rank nets across the lonely lawn. 
For no one went there, — 'twas a haunted spot. 



GARNAUT HALL 249 

A legend killed it for a kindly home, — 
A grim estate, which every heir in turn 
Left to the orgies of the wind and rain, 
The newt, the toad, the spider, and the mouse. 

The red leaf withered and the green leaf grew. 
And once, 'tis said, the Queen reached out her hand 
And let it rest on Cecil's velvet sleeve, 
And spoke: "I prithee, Cecil, tell us now, 
Was 't ever known what happened to those men, — 
Those Garnauts? — Were they never, never found?" 
The weasel face had fain looked wise for her, 
But no one of that century ever knew. 

The red leaf withered and the green leaf grew. 
And in that year King James the Second died. 
The land changed owners, and the new-made lord 
Sent down his workmen to revamp the Hall 
And make the waste place blossom as the rose. 
By chance, a workman in the eastern wing, 
Fitting the cornice, stumbled on a door, 
Which creaked, and seemed to open of itself; 
And there within the chamber, on the flags, 
He saw two figures in outlandish guise 
Of hose and doublet, — one stretched out full-length, 
And one half fallen forward on his breast, 
Holding the other's hand with vice-like grip : 
One face was calm, the other sad as death, 
With something in it of a pleading look, 
As might befall a man that dies at prayer. 
Amazed, the workman hallooed to his mates 
To see the wonder; but ere they could come, 
The figures crumbled and were shapeless dust. 



250 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

THE LADY OF CASTELNOIRE 

A.D. 1700 

I 

Bretagne had not her peer. In the Province far or 

near 
There were never such brown tresses, such a faultless 

hand: 
She had youth, and she had gold, she had jewels all 

untold, 
And many a lover bold wooed the Lady of the Land. 



But she, with queenliest grace, bent low her pallid 

face, 
And "Woo me not, for Jesus' sake, fair gentlemen," 

she said. 
If they woo'd, then — with a frown she would strike 

their passion down: 
She might have wed a crown to the ringlets on her head. 



From the dizzy castle-tips, hour by hour she watched 

the ships, 
Like sheeted phantoms coming and going evermore, 
While the twilight settled down on the sleepy seaport 

town, 
On the gables peaked and brown, that had sheltered 

kings of yore. 



THE LADY OF CASTELNOIRE 251 



Dusky belts of cedar-wood partly claspt the widening 

flood; 
Like a knot of daisies lay the hamlets on the hill; 
In the hostelry below sparks of light would come and 

And faint voices, strangely low, from the garrulous 
old mill. 

5 

Here the land in grassy swells gently broke; there 

sunk in dells 
With mosses green and purple, and prongs of rock 

and peat; 
Here, in statue-like repose, an old wrinkled mountain 

rose, 
With its hoary head in snows, and wild-roses at its 

feet. 

6 

And so oft she sat alone in the turret of gray stone, 
And looked across the moorland, so woful, to the sea, 
That there grew a village-cry, how her cheek did lose 

its dye, 
As a ship, once, sailing by, faded on the sapphire lea. 



Her few walks led all one way, and all ended at the 

gray 
And ragged, jagged rocks that fringe the lonesome 

beach; 



252 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

There she would stand, the Sweet ! with the white 

surf at her feet, 
While above her wheeled the fleet sparrow-hawk 

with startling screech. 

8 

And she ever loved the sea, — God's half-uttered 

mystery, — 
With its million lips of shells, its never ceasing roar: 
And 'twas well that, when she died, they made her a 

grave beside 
The blue pulses of the tide, by the towers of Castel- 

noire. 



Now, one chill November morn, many russet autumns 

gone, 
A strange ship with folded wings lay dozing off the lea ; 
It had lain throughout the night with its wings of 

murky white 
Folded, after weary flight, — the worn nursling of the 

sea. 

10 

Crowds of peasants flocked the sands; there were 
tears and clasping hands; 

And a sailor from the ship stalked through the kirk- 
yard gate. 

Then amid the grass that crept, fading, over her who 
slept, 

How he hid his face and wept, crying, Late, alas! 
too late! 



AMONTILLADO 



ii 



2 53 



And they called her cold. God knows. . . . Under- 
neath the winter snows 

The invisible hearts of flowers grew ripe for blossom- 
ing ! ^ 

And the lives that look so cold, if their stories could 
be told, 

Would seem cast in gentler mould, would seem full 
of love and spring. 

AMONTILLADO 

VINTAGE, 1826 



Rafters black with smoke, 

White with sand the floor is, 
Twenty whiskered Dons 

Calling to Dolores, — 
Tawny flower of Spain, 

Empress of the larder, 
Keeper of the wines 

In this old posada. 



Hither, light-of-foot, 

Dolores, Hebe, Circe ! — 
Pretty Spanish girl, 

With not a bit of mercy! 
Here I'm sad and sick, 

Faint and thirsty very, 
And she doesn't bring 

The Amontillado Sherry ! 



254 



ALDRICH'S POEMS 



Thank you. Breath of June ! 

Now my heart beats freer: 
Kisses for your hand, 

Amigita mia ! 
You shall live in song, 

Ripe and warm and cheery, 
Mellowing with years, 

Like Amontillado Sherry. 



Evil spirits, fly ! 

Care, begone, blue dragon ! 
Only shapes of joy 

Are sculptured on the flagon 
Lyrics, — repartees, — 

Kisses, — all that's merry, 
Rise to touch the lip 

In Amontillado Sherry ! 



Here be worth and wealth, 

And love, the arch enchanter; 
Here the golden blood 

Of saints, in this decanter ! 
When old Charon comes 

To row me o'er his ferry, 
I'll bribe him with a case 

Of Amontillado Sherry ! 



CASTLES 255 



While the earth spins round 

And the stars lean over, 
May this amber sprite 

Never lack a lover. 
Blessed be the man 

Who lured her from the berry, 
And blest the girl who brings 

The Amontillado Sherry. 



What ! the flagon's dry ? 

Hark, old Time's confession. — 
Both hands crost at XII, 

Owning his transgression! 
Pray, old monk ! for all 

Generous souls and merry, 
May they have their fill 

Of Amontillado Sherry ! 



CASTLES 

There is a picture in my brain 
That only fades to come again, — 
The sunlight, through a veil of rain 

To leeward, gilding 
A narrow stretch of brown sea-sand, 
A lighthouse half a league from land, 
And two young lovers, hand in hand, 

A castle-building. 



2^6 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Upon the budded apple trees 

The robins sing by twos and threes, 

And ever at the faintest breeze 

Down drops a blossom; 
And ever would that lover be 
The wind that robs the burgeoned tree, 
And lifts the soft tress daintily 

On Beauty's bosom. 

Ah, graybeard, what a happy thing 
It was, when life was in its spring, 
To peep through love's betrothal ring 

At Fields Elysian, 
To move and breathe in magic air, 
To think that all that seems is fair, — 
Ah, ripe young mouth and golden hair, 

Thou pretty vision ! 

Well, well, I think not on these two 
But the old wound breaks out anew, 
And the old dream, as if 'twere true, 

In my heart nestles; 
Then tears come welling to my eyes 
For yonder, all in saintly guise, 
As 'twere, a sweet dead woman lies 

Upon the trestles ! 



ROBIN BADFELLOW 

Four bluish eggs all in the moss ! 

Soft-lined home on the cherry-bough ! 
Life is trouble, and love is loss, — 

There's only one robin now ! 



THE LILY OF LOCH-INE 257 

O robin up in the cherry tree, 

Singing your soul away, 
Great is the grief befallen me, 

And how can you be so gay? 

Long ago when you cried in the nest, 

The last of the sickly brood, 
Scarcely a pin-feather warming your breast, 

Who was it brought you food? 

Who said, "Music, come fill his throat, 

Or ever the May be fled " ? 
Who was it loved the wee sweet note 

And the bosom's sea-shell red? 

Who said, "Cherries, grow ripe and big, 
Black and ripe for this bird of mine"? 

How little bright-bosom bends the twig, 
Sipping the black-heart's wine ! 

Now that my days and nights are woe, 
Now that I weep for love's dear sake, — 

There you go singing away as though 
Never a heart could break ! 



THE LILY OF LOCH-INE 

She was very, very fair, 

Like a Saint in her blonde hair, — 

Like Raphael's Madonna, 

With a certain shade of care 

And a glory breaking on her ! 



258 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

In the kirkyard let her lie, 
Let the thistles and the burs 
Cover up the twofold life, 
The sinless life and hers. 
God have mercy on that day 
When the grave gives up the Dead 
And the World shall pass away. 

Now Sir Rohan sails the sea, 
Loud he laughs above his wine, 
And he never, never thinks 
Of the Lily of Loch-Ine. 
God have mercy on that day 
When the grave gives up the Dead 
And the World shall pass away. 



DECEMBER 

1863 

Only the sea intoning, 
Only the wainscot-mouse, 
Only the wild wind moaning 
Over the lonely house. 

Darkest of all Decembers 
Ever my life has known, 
Sitting here by the embers, 
Stunned and helpless, alone, — 

Dreaming of two graves lying 
Out in the damp and chill; 
One where the buzzard, flying, 
Pauses at Malvern Hill; 



THE SHEIK'S WELCOME 259 

The other, — alas ! the pillows 
Of that uneasy bed 
Rise and fall with the billows 
Over our sailor's head. 

Theirs the heroic story, — 
Died, by frigate and town ! 
Theirs the Calm and the Glory, 
Theirs the Cross and the Crown. 

Mine to linger and languish 
Here by the wintry sea. 
Ah, faint heart ! in thy anguish, 
What is there left to thee? 

Only the sea intoning, 
Only the wainscot-mouse, 
Only the wild wind moaning 
Over the lonely house. 

THE SHEIK'S WELCOME 

Because thou com'st, a weary guest, 
Unto my tent, I bid thee rest. 
This cruse of oil, this skin of wine, 
These tamarinds and dates, are thine; 
And while thou eatest, Medjid, there, 
Shall bathe the heated nostrils of thy mare. 

Illah il' Allah ! Even so 
An Arab chieftain treats a foe, 
Holds him as one without a fault 
Who breaks his bread and tastes his salt; 
And, in fair battle, strikes him dead 
With the same pleasure that he gives him bread ! 



260 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

TWO SONGS FROM THE PERSIAN 



O, cease, sweet music, let us rest: 

Too soon the hateful light is born ! 
Henceforth let day be counted night, 
And midnight called the morn. 

O, cease, sweet music, let us rest: 

A tearful, languid spirit lies 
(Like the dim scent in violets) 
In Zela's gentle eyes. 

There is a sadness in sweet sound 

That quickens tears. O music, lest 
We weep with thy strange sorrow, cease ! 
Be still, and let us rest. 



Ah ! sad are they who know not love, 
But, far from passion's tears and smiles, 
Drift down a moonless sea, beyond 
The silvery coasts of fairy isles. 

And sadder they whose longing lips 
Kiss empty air, and never touch 
The dear warm mouth of those they love, 
Waiting, wasting, suffering much. 

But clear as amber, fine as musk, 
Is life to those who, pilgrim-wise, 
Move hand in hand from dawn to dusk, 
Each morning nearer Paradise. . 



A PRELUDE 261 

O, not for them shall angels pray ! 
They stand in everlasting light, 
They walk in Allah's smile by day, 
And nestle in his heart by night. 

THE SULTANA 

In the draperies' purple gloom, 
In the gilded chamber she stands, 

I catch a glimpse of her bosom's bloom, 
And the white of her jewelled hands. 

Each wandering wind that blows 

By the lattice, seems to bear 
From her parted lips the scent of the rose, 

And the jasmine from her hair. 

Her dark-browed odalisques lean 

To the fountain's feathery rain, 
And a parroquet, by the broidered screen, 

Dangles its silvery chain. 

But pallid, luminous, cold, 

Like a phantom she fills the place, 

Sick to the heart, in that cage of gold, 
With her sumptuous disgrace ! 

A PRELUDE 

Hassan Ben Abdul at the Ivory Gate 

Of Bagdad sat and chattered in the sun, 

Like any magpie chattered to himself, 

And four lank, swarthy Arab boys that stopt 

A gambling game with peach-pits, and drew near. 

Then Iman Khan, the friend of thirsty souls, 



262 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

The seller of pure water, ceased his cry, 

And placed his water-skins against the gate, — 

They looked so like him, with their sallow cheeks 

Puffed out like Iman's. Then a eunuch came 

And swung a pack of sweetmeats from his head, 

And stood, — a hideous pagan cut in jet. 

And then a Jew, whose sandal-straps were red 

With desert-dust, limped, cringing, to the crowd, - 

He, too, would listen; and close after him 

A jeweller that glittered like his shop : 

Then two blind mendicants, who wished to go 

Six diverse ways at once, came stumbling by, 

But hearing Hassan chatter, sat them down. 

And if the Khaleef had been riding near, 

He would have paused to listen like the rest, 

For Hassan's fame was ripe in all the East. 

From spicy Cairo to far Ispahan, 

From Mecca to Damascus, he was known, 

Hassan, the Arab with the Singing Heart. 

His songs were sung by boatmen on the Nile, 

By Beddowee maidens, and in Tartar camps, 

While all men loved him as they love their eyes; 

And when he spake, the wisest, next to him, 

Was he who listened. And thus Hassan sung. 

— And I, a stranger, lingering in Bagdad, 

Half English and half Arab, by my beard ! 

Caught at the gilded epic as it grew, 

And for my Christian brothers wrote it down. 

A TURKISH LEGEND 

A certain Pasha, dead five thousand years, 
Once from his harem fled in sudden tears. 



GHOSTS 263 

And had this sentence on the city's gate 
Deeply engraven, "Only God is great." 

So these four words above the city's noise 
Hung like the accents of an angel's voice; 

And evermore, from the high barbacan, 
Saluted each returning caravan. 

Lost is that city's glory. Every gust 

Lifts, with crisp leaves, the unknown Pasha's dust. 

And all is ruin, — save one wrinkled gate 
Whereon is written, "Only God is great." 



GHOSTS 

Those forms we fancy shadows, those strange lights 

That flash on dank morasses, the quick wind 

That smites us by the roadside, — are the Night's 

Innumerable children. Unconfined 

By shroud or coffin, disembodied souls, 

Uneasy spirits, steal into the air 

From ancient graveyards when the curfew tolls 

At the day's death. Pestilence and despair 

Fly with the sightless bats at set of sun. 

And wheresoever murders have been done, 

In crowded palaces or lonesome woods, 

Where'er a soul has sold itself and lost 

Its high inheritance, there, hovering, broods 

Some sad, invisible, accursed Ghosts ! 



264 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

nora Mccarty 

[IRISH AIR] 



Nora is pretty, 
Nora is witty, 

Witty and pretty as pretty can be ! 
She's the completest 
Of girls, and the neatest, 
The brightest and sweetest: 

But she's not for me. 

Mavourneen ! 



Nora, be still, you ! 
Nora, why will you 

Be witty and pretty as pretty can be, 
So strong and so slender, 
So haughty and tender, 
So sweet in your splendor, — 

And yet not for me? 

Mavourneen ! 



MURDER DONE 



Invisible fingers of air 

Just lifted the curtain's fold, 

Just rippled the calm of her loosened hair, 

Beautiful, treacherous gold ! 



GLAMOURIE 265 

And she stood like the thought of a sculptor, carved 

In marble, snowy and cold; 

But her pure, sweet look was as foul a lie 

As ever a woman told ! 



A statue lay stark at my feet, 

Dead to the finger-tips. 

A darkness hung in the lengths of her hair, 

And shadowed her perjured lips. 

I strangled her voice, but, O heaven ! 

I could not strangle one moan 

That followed me out in the silent streets 

As I fled through the midnight alone. 

— This in a dream. Now I ask, 

Am I guilty as if I were caught 

With my hands at her throat ? Is it murder done ? 

I murdered her in my thought ! 



GLAMOURIE 

Under the night, 

In the white moonshine, 
Sit thou with me, 
By the graveyard tree, 
Imogene. 

The fireflies swarm 

In the white moonshine, 
Each with its light 
For our bridal night, 
Imogene. 



266 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Blushing with love, 

In the white moonshine, 
Lie in my arms, 
So, safe from alarms, 
Imogene. 

Paler art thou 

Than the white moonshine. 
Ho ! thou art lost, — 
Thou lovest a Ghost, 
Imogene ! 



THE POET 

He wasted richest gifts of God. 
But here's the limit of his woes, 
Sleep rest him ! See, above him grows 

The very grass whereon he trod. 

He walked with daemons, ghouls, and things 
Unsightly . . . terrors and despairs, 
And ever in the blackened airs 

A dismal raven rlapt its wings. 

Behold ! within this narrow grave 

Is shut the baser part of him. 

Behold ! he could not wholly dim 
The genius gracious heaven gave, — 

For strains of music here and there, 

Weird murmurings, vague, prophetic tones, 
Are blown across the silent zones 

Forever in the midnight air. 



SEADRIFT 267 

SEADRIFT 

See where she stands, on the wet sea-sands, 

Looking across the water: 
Wild is the night, but wilder still 

The face of the fisher's daughter ! 

What does she there, in the lightning's glare, 

What does she there, I wonder? 
What dread daemon drags her forth 

In the night and wind and thunder? 

Is it the ghost that haunts this coast ? — 

The cruel waves mount higher, 
And the beacon pierces the stormy dark 

With its javelin of fire. 

Beyond the light of the beacon bright 

A merchantman is tacking; 
The hoarse wind whistling through the shrouds, 

And the brittle topmasts cracking. 

The sea it moans over dead men's bones, 

The sea it foams in anger; 
The curlews swoop through the resonant air 

With a warning cry of danger. 

The star-fish clings to the seaweed's rings 

In a vague, dumb sense of peril; 
And the spray, with its phantom-fingers, grasps 

At the mullein dry and sterile. 

O, who is she that stands by the sea, 
In the lightning's glare, undaunted ? — 

Seems this now like the coast of hell 
By one white spirit haunted ! 



268 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

The night drags by; and the breakers die 

Along the ragged ledges; 
The robin stirs in its drenched nest, 

The hawthorn blooms on the hedges. 

In shimmering lines, through the dripping pines, 

The stealthy morn advances; 
And the heavy sea-fog straggles back 

Before those bristling lances ! 

Still she stands on the wet sea-sands; 

The morning breaks above her, 
And the corpse of a sailor gleams on the rocks, — 

What if it were her lover? 



THE QUEEN'S RIDE 

AN INVITATION 

'Tis that fair time of year, 

Lady mine, 
When stately Guinevere, 
In her sea-green robe and hood, 
Went a-riding through the wood, 

Lady mine. 

And as the Queen did ride, 

Lady mine, 
Sir Launcelot at her side 
Laughed and chatted, bending over, 
Half her friend and all her lover ! 

Lady mine. 



THE QUEEN'S RIDE 269 

And as they rode along, 

Lady mine, 
The throstle gave them song, 
And the buds peeped through the grass 
To see youth and beauty pass ! 

Lady mine. 

And on, through deathless time, 

Lady mine, 
These lovers in their prime, 
(Two fairy ghosts together !) 
Ride, with sea-green robe, and feather ! 

Lady mine. 

And so we two will ride, 

Lady mine, 
At your pleasure, side by side, 
Laugh and chat; I bending over, 
Half your friend and all your lover ! 

Lady mine. 

But if you like not this, 

Lady mine, 
And take my love amiss, 
Then I'll ride unto the end, 
Half your lover, all your friend ! 

Lady mine. 

So, come which way you will, 

Lady mine, 
Vale, upland, plain, and hill 
Wait your coming. For one day 
Loose the bridle, and away ! 

Lady mine. 



SONNETS 



EUTERPE 



Now if Euterpe held me not in scorn, 
I'd shape a lyric, perfect, fair, and round 
As that thin band of gold wherewith I bound 

Your slender ringer our betrothal morn. 

Not of Desire alone is music born, 

Not till the Muse wills is our passion crowned : 
Unsought she comes, if sought but seldom found. 

Hence is it Poets often are forlorn, 

Taciturn, shy, self-immolated, pale, 

Taking no healthy pleasure in their kind, — 

Wrapt in their dream as in a coat-of-mail. 
Hence is it I, the least, a very hind, 

Have stolen away into this leafy vale 

Drawn by the nutings of the silvery wind. 

AT BAY RIDGE, L.L 

Pleasant it is to lie amid the grass 

Under these shady locusts, half the day, 
Watching the ships reflected on the Bay, 

Topmast and shroud, as in a wizard's glass: 

To see the happy-hearted martins pass, 

Brushing the dewdrops from the lilac spray: 
Or else to hang enamoured o'er some lay 

Of fairy regions : or to muse, alas ! 

On Dante, exiled, journeying outworn; 
On patient Milton's sorrowfulest eyes 
270 



THE AMULET 271 

Shut from the splendors of the Night and Morn: 

To think that now, beneath the Italian skies, 
In such clear air as this, by Tiber's wave, 
Daisies are trembling over Keats 's grave. 

PURSUIT AND POSSESSION 

When I behold what pleasure is Pursuit, 

What life, what glorious eagerness it is; 

Then mark how full Possession falls from this, 
How fairer seems the blossom than the fruit, — 
I am perplext, and often stricken mute 

Wondering which attained the higher bliss, 

The winged insect, or the chrysalis 
It thrust aside with unreluctant foot. 
Spirit of verse which still eludes my art, 

You shapes of loveliness that still do haunt me, 
O never, never rest upon my heart. 

If when I have thee I shall little want thee ! 
Still flit away in moonlight, rain, and dew, 
Wills o' the wisp, that I may still pursue ! 

THE AMULET 

Though thou wert cunninger than Vivien, — 
Faithful as Enid, — fair as Guinevere, — 
Pure as Elaine, — I should not hold thee dear. 

Count me not cold, decorous, unlike men ! 

Indeed the time was, and not long since, when — 
But 'tis not now. An amulet I've here 
Saves me. A ring. Observe : within this sphere 

Of chiselled gold a jewel is set. What then? 
Why, this, — the stone and setting cannot part, 

Unless one's broken. See with what a grace 



272 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

The diamond dewdrop sinks into the white 
Tulip-shaped calyx, and o'erfloods it quite ! 
There is a Lady set so in my heart 
There's not for any other any place. 



EGYPT 

Fantastic Sleep is busy with my eyes : 
I seem in some waste solitude to stand 
Once ruled of Cheops : upon either hand 

A dark illimitable desert lies, 

Sultry and still, — a realm of mysteries ; 
A wide-browed Sphinx, half buried in the sand, 
With orbless sockets stares across the land, 

The wofulest thing beneath these brooding skies 

Where all is woful, weird-lit vacancy. 

'Tis neither midnight, twilight, nor moonrise. 

Lo ! while I gaze, beyond the vast sand-sea 

The nebulous clouds are downward slowly drawn, 

And one bleared star, faint-glimmering like a bee, 
Is shut i' the rosy outstretched hand of Dawn. 



MIRACLES 

Sick of myself and all that keeps the light 
Of the blue skies away from me and mine, 
I climb this ledge, and by this wind-swept pine 

Lingering, watch the coming of the night. 

'Tis ever a new wonder to my sight. 

Men look to God for some mysterious sign, 
For other stars than those that nightly shine, 

For some unnatural symbol of His might. 



ACCOMPLICES 273 

Wouldst see a miracle as grand as those 
The prophets wrought of old in Palestine ? 

Come watch with me the shaft of fire that glows 
In yonder West: the fair frail palaces, 

The fading alps and archipelagoes, 
And great cloud-continents of sunset-seas. 



FREDERICKSBURG 

The increasing moonlight drifts across my bed, 
And on the churchyard by the road, I know 
It falls as white and noiselessly as snow. 

'Twas such a night two weary summers fled; 

The stars, as now, were waning overhead. 
Listen ! Again the shrill-lipped bugles blow 
Where the swift currents of the river flow 

Past Fredericksburg, — far off the heavens are red 

With sudden conflagration: on yon height, 

Linstock in hand, the gunners hold their breath : 

A signal-rocket pierces the dense night, 

Flings its spent stars upon the town beneath: 

Hark ! — the artillery massing on the right, 

Hark ! — the black squadrons wheeling down to 
Death ! 



ACCOMPLICES 

The soft new grass is creeping o'er the graves 
By the Potomac; and the crisp ground-flower 
Lifts its blue cup to catch the passing shower; 
The pine-cone ripens, and the long moss waves 
Its tangled gonfalons above our braves. 



274 ALDRICH'S POEMS 

Hark, what a burst of music from yon bower ! — 

The Southern nightingale that, hour by hour, 
In its melodious summer madness raves. 
Ah, with what delicate touches of her hand, 

With what sweet voices, Nature seeks to screen 
The awful Crime of this distracted land, — 

Sets her birds singing, while she spreads her green 
Mantle of velvet where the Murdered lie, 
As if to hide the horror from God's eye. 



INDEX TO TITLES 

(References are to pages.) 

About a Tiny Girl 50 

Accomplices . . • . . . . . • 2 73 

Afrites give Giaffer a Hint, The 94 

After the Rain no 

Amontillado .... ^ ... . 253 

Amulet, The 271 

Anacreontic 56 

Angel, The 15 

At Bay Ridge, L.I 270 

At the Dead-House 118 

Autumnalia 122 

Babie Bell 103 

Ballad, A. . .*. . . ... . .111 

Ballad of Nantucket, A 130 

Barbara .......... 123 

Bard, The .2 

Bells, The 1 

Berthabell 49 

Betrothal, The 113 

Bluebells of New England, The 138 

Caliph Muses, The . .87 

Castles .......... 255 

Chatterton .......... 9 

Christmas Chime, A 27 

Cloth of Gold 107 

Course of True Love never did run Smooth, The . . 85 
Crescent and the Cross, The . . . . . .189 

Crescent City at Night 13 

Dead 121 

December, 1863 ......... 258 

Drip, Drip, Drip 31 

Egypt 272 

275 



276 INDEX TO TITLES 

Elegiac . . . . . . . . 48 

Epigrammatical 55 

Eudele .......... 30 

Euterpe . . . . * . . . . .270 

Faded Violet, The 10/ 

Fairy Punishment . . . . . . . .167 

Fannie . . '. . . ..... . .16 

Forever and Forever ........ 44 

Fredericksburg . . . . . . . . .273 

Friar Jerome's Beautiful Book ...... 235 

Garnaut Hall 242 

Gentle Hand, The ........ 51 

Ghosts .......... 263 

Ghost's Lady, The 109 

Glamourie .......... 265 

Golden Island, The . . . . . . . . . 67 

Great Man's Death, A 137 

Hasheesh 188 

Hassan's Music • . . . .166 

Haunted . . . . . . . . . .192 

Hearts and Crowns ........ 93 

Hesperides 188 

Hope 71 

How Giaffer passed the Night 92 

How it struck the Lovers ....... 89 

How the Little Maiden Wept 91 

H. W. L 12 

I might have Been . -38 

Imore . .......... 42 

Infelicissimus . . . . . . . . .128 

In the Old Church- tower . . . . . . .196 

In the Pavilion ......... 96 

In the Woods 121 

Invocation to Sleep . . . . . . . .136 

I Sat beside you while you Slept . . . . . .120 

It was a Knight of Aragon . . . . . .124 

Judith . . 205 



INDEX TO TITLES 277 



Kathie Morris 183 

Knight of Poesy, The 25 

Lachrymose, The 60 

Lady of Castelnoire, The . . . . . . .250 

Lamia . . . 197 

Last Night and To-Night 11 1 

Legend of Elsinore, A . . . . . . . 139 

L'Envoi . ... . . . . . . .127 

Lillyan 71 

Lily of Loch-Ine, The . . . . . . . .257 

Little Maud 115 

Little Witches at the Crossings, The . . . -45 

Lunch, The . . . . . . . . .192 

Madam, as you pass us By . . . . . . . 113 

Madrigal, A 37 

Man and the Hour, The 199 

Maud of Allinggale 18 

May . . . . . . . . . . -115 

Merry Bells shall Ring, The . . . -. . .114 

Miracles 166 

Miracles . . . . . . . . .272 

Miriam's Woe . . . . . . . . .194 

Moorland, The 117 

Murder Done ......... 264 

My Highland Mary 64 

My North and South 108 

Nameless Pain 116 

Night Rain, The 46 

Night Scene ......... 80 

Night Wind, The 41 

Noon . . ... . . . . . . • 47 

Nora McCarty . 264 

Old House, The 62 

Our Colors at Fort Sumter . . . . . . . 199 

Palabras Carinosas . . . . . . . .119 

Pampinea . . . . . . . . . .171 

Passing St. Helena 143 



278 INDEX TO TITLES 

Pastoral Hymn to the Fairies, A . . . . -132 

Perdita . . . . . . . . . .116 

Phoebus 46 

Piscataqua River . . . . . . . .190 

Poet, The 266 

Poet's Grave, A 135 

Prelude, A 261 

Prelude to the Steeple of St. Ayne 4 

Proem .......... 3 

Prologue to Judith . . . . . . . .203 

Pursuit and Possession . . . . . . .271 

Pythagoras . . . . . . . . . 174 

Queen's Ride, The 268 

Robin Badfellow ........ 256 

Robin, The ......... 195 

Scene of Blanchette 73 

Seadrift .......... 267 

Set of Turquoise, The ....... 145 

Sheik's Welcome, The 259 

Spendthrift's Feast, The . . . . . . -131 

Song 119 

Song 122 

Song 190 

Song 193 

Song 197 

Song of a Heart 14 

Sonnets . ... . . . . . . . 165 

Steeple of St. Ayne, The 5 

Sultana, The . . . 261 

"Thanatopsis" 47 

Three Conceits, The . «. 53 

Tiger-lilies 112 

To 48 

To 165 

To Marie . . . . . . . . . , . 24 

To Sue 55 

Tousoulia . 33 

Tragedy, The . . . . 177 



INDEX TO TITLES 



279 



Turkish Legend, A 262 

Twilight Idyl 65 

Two Cities . ......... 40 

Two Leaves from a Play 181 

Two Songs from the Persian ...... 260 

Unforgiven, The 133 

Wedding Fete, The 89 

We Knew it would Rain . . . . . . .110 

When the Sultan goes to Ispahan 125 

With the Stars and the Stripes around Him . . 58 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES 



(References are to pages.) 

Above the petty passions of the crowd 

A certain Pasha, dead .five thousand years 

A Gothic window, where a damask curtain 

Ah ! fine it was that April time . 

Ah ! sad are they who know not love 

All through that dreariest day 

And this is St. Helena 

A noisome mildewed vine 

Another Minstrel, panting for a name 

As falls a ray of transient golden light 

As sea-shells whisper of the sleepless sea 

As some rare jewel, sealed within a rock 

At Bagdad, in his gold kiosk 

A thousand lanterns, tulip-shaped 

Barbara hath a falcon's eye 
Because thou com'st, a weary guest 
Blow from the temples of the Sun 
Bretagne had not her peer 

Dew-dappled Phoebus, with half-shaded eye 

Fannie has the sweetest foot 
Fantastic sleep is busy with my eyes . 
Four bluish eggs all in the moss 
From out the blossomed cherry-tops 



174 
262 
1.92 

183 
260 

3i 
143 
192 

25 
39 
24 
199 
«7 
89 

123 

259 
197 
250 

46 

16 
272 
256 
i95 



God fashioned Man from out the common earth 
Good-night ! I have to say good-night 
Go on your way, and let me pass 



Hassan Ben Abdul at the Ivory Gate 
Have you not heard the poets tell 
Hebe's here, May is here 
He could not sleep, for lo ! he saw 
He never wed with thoughts of death 
280 



203 
119 
197 

261 

103 

115 

92 

48 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES 



281 



Here is where they bring the dead 

Here or hereafter? In the body here . 

Here's to the hero of Moultrie 

He's chosen the broad zenith for his seat 

He wasted richest gifts of God 

How grand to sit in this old steeple high 

How softly comes the Evening down . 

How sweetly comes the picture now . 

I am not with you, Stoddard 

I am very, very fond .... 

Ida, look me in the eyes 

I feel like weeping when the dismal Wind 

If thy soul, Herrick, dwelt with me 

I have placed a golden 

I heard a sorrowful woman say . 

I know an island sitting in the sea 

I like not lady-slippers 

"I might have been" 's a weary lay . 

In my nostrils the summer wind 

In the draperies' purple gloom 

In the old church-tower 

In this pleasant beechen shade 

Invisible fingers of air ... 

I sat beside you while you slept 

It happened on a summer day that Hall 

It was a Knight of Aragon 

It was with doubt and trembling 

I've christened these, my poesies, the Bells 

I walked with him one melancholy night 



Kind was my friend who, in the Eastern land 

Land of Delight ! you did not hold us long 
Last night my soul was lapped . 
Let him lie i' the dark narrow grave . 
Like him of old, whose touch divine . 
Lying by the summer sea .... 

Madam, as you pass us by . 

Maiden Maud and Marian .... 

Men turn to angels when dead 



242 
199 

47 
266 

13 
65 
64 

167 

108 

5° 

4i 

188 

113 
121 

67 
112 

38 
116 
261 
196 

*35 
264 
120 

53 
124 

122 

3 
128 



166 

in 

58 

12 

171 

113 
119 
127 



282 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES 



Merry is the robin .... 
Mesrour, go bring my golden cup 
Miriam at the planter's door 
'Mong Nellie's curls I saw a rose to-night 

Near my bed, there, hangs the picture 
Nora is pretty ... 
Now Holofernes with his barbarous hordes 
Now if Euterpe held me not in scorn 
Now, if the muses held me not in scorn 
Now when the palace lights were out . 



O but she had not her peer 

O, but she loved him 

O, cease, sweet music, let us rest 

O, dreamy-eyed maiden 

O ! Memory, the painter 

One cloud was gabled like a country house 

One day while sitting in the dim old woods 

Only the sea intoning 

O where is our dainty, our darling 

O ye little tricksy gods 



Piteous Rain ! O how it sobs without 
Pleasant it is to lie amid the grass 
Poet, shape a song for me . 



Quaint-thoughted Rumor whispered of a Name 
Rafters black with smoke .... 



See where she stands, on the wet sea-sands 

She was very, very fair . . . . 

Sick of myself and all that keeps the light . 

Sick of myself and all that keeps the light . 

Sir Criticus just made a caustic hit . 

Stricken with thought, I staggered through the night 

Sweet Nea held her hand in mine 

The angels bend in heaven's arch to-night . 

The blackbird sings in the hazel dell 

The chestnuts shine through the cloven rind 



i93 
96 

194 
37 

133 
264 
205 
270 
165 
94 

1 39 

181 

260 

7i 

15 

80 

42 

258 

"5 
132 

46 
270 
116 

69 

253 

267 

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166 
272 

55 
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44 

27 
in 
190 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES 



283 



my bed 



The cottage and the mill 

The "Dame with the Camellias" 

The Friar Jerome, for some slight sin 

The gleam that lies 

The increasing moonlight drifts across 

The Juniata rippled at her feet . 

The moorland lies a dreary waste 

The merry bells shall ring . 

The music sang itself to death 

Then through the palace 

The Old House stands alone 

The rain has ceased, and in my room 

There is a picture in my brain 

There is a sleep for all things 

The roses are a regal troop 

These imps of Want ! these sprites of Poverty 

The snow was on the housetop . 

The soft new grass is creeping o'er the graves 

The soft wind moved the curtain's fold 

The summer birds are in the summer sky . 

The third moon of our marriage, Beatrice . 

The wind was toying with her hair 

This eve my heart is floating upon tears 

This world's as beautiful to-day 

Those forms we fancy shadows . 

Though thou wert cunninger than Vivien . 

Thou singest by the gleaming isles 

Three nights did Giaffer watch this light 

'Tis ever so, my friend, when one would climb 

'Tis that fair time of year .... 

To-day a god died 

To-night we sup with Fiole 
'Twas dusk, and from my window 



Under the night 
Under the night 



We knew it would rain, for all the morn 
What thought is folded in thy leaves . 
When from darke chaos was create ye earthe 
When I behold what pleasure is Pursuit 
When marigolds heaped lie like ingots of gold 



55 
177 

235 

56 
273 

33 
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114 

9i 

89 

62 

no 

255 
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4 

2 73 

3° 

121 

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9 

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263 

271 

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I3 1 

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no 

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7* 
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284 



INDEX TO FIRST LINES 



When one can die with the proud consciousness 

When the Sultan Shah-Zaman 

Where an ivy vine is creeping 

Where go you, pretty Maggie 

Where trips the blue Piscataqua 

Wilt thou not finish, Ivan . 

Ye who love Nature, and in Nature, God 

You ask us if by rule or no 

You'll see it through the hemlock boughs 



47 
125 

49 
130 

5i 

IS 

14 

107 

5 



AUG 27 '1908 



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